Final Evaluation
by Do The Cool Whip
Summary: After passing their jounin-sensei exams, new genin are required to return to the academy for one final assessment. This is Umino Iruka's final chance to set his students on a successful path to becoming a ninja and there's no way he's going to waste it.
1. Team 8

This is both the easiest and hardest part of graduating academy students. Every year, after the jounin-sensei approve their genin teams, separating the potential genin from the actual ones, the genin return for one final assessment with the academy teacher. It's easy because for the most part, Iruka will be informing each genin of a summary of everything in that is in their student file. All he has to do is be brutally honest with each genin about their strengths and weaknesses.

It's an easy enough task, the information has been compiled over the entire time they attended the academy, and as their primary instructor for the past year, Iruka has a very good idea of how accurate the information is. The hard part of this discussion comes from the knowledge that if he can't get through to the kids today, if he can't get them to take this seriously, if can't get them to act on the advice that has been painstakingly collected for their benefit, they won't survive.

When each of the children walk into his office for their consultation, Iruka won't be talking to academy students. He'll be talking to genin. Shinobi. If they brush him off, like they're prone to, they won't be risking a bad grade, but death.

Iruka sighs, double-checking that each of his files are in order. Normally, Team 7 would be the first team called in, but from the rumours he's heard about Hatake Kakashi and the fact that the waiting room is one chakra signature short, he feels it's safe to assume Team 7 will be the last group to undergo their evaluation. He places Teams 7 and 10's files into his desk, leaving Team 8's on top and exits his office.

As expected, Hatake isn't in the room. Team 7 isn't exactly seated together, Naruto and Sasuke are glaring at each other from opposite sides of the room. Sakura and Ino are seated on either side of Sasuke, too preoccupied with each other to fawn over Sasuke. Chouji and Shikamaru are watching clouds float by outside the window from a corner in the room. Team 8 is seated together. They aren't talking to each other: Shino is thinking about something, fingers twitching as he debates with himself; Hinata is blushing, alternating between staring at her lap and watching Naruto; Kiba is glaring at Sasuke, absentmindedly petting Akamaru. They're the only team sitting together, which makes them the team most likely to make chunin.

Asuma and Kurenai are observing their students from the back of the room. They nod at him, straightening up when he steps into the room. He walks to the front of the room and clears his throat, the rough sound causing all of the new genin to instinctively to stop what they're doing and give him their full attention. "Congratulations, genin," he begins. "All of you are now officially ninja of Konoha. I want all of you to take a second to look at the others in the room with you. The others here are your comrades. They learned beside you. They practiced with you. They struggled by your side. All of your successes and failures over the past year have been seen by these people. When you begin running C and B-rank missions, you won't necessarily always be running them with your team; instead, you will be running them with the other people in this room. No matter what situation you're in, these people will always be your ally, never your enemy." He pauses here, takes a minute to carefully gauge the reactions of the genin in the room.

It's about what he expected.

Shikamaru, for all intents and purposes, appears to be sleeping; Chouji is listening to his speech, munching thoughtfully on a mouthful of chips; Ino is taking careful stock of his every word, eyes darting around. Naruto is a barely contained body of energy, requiring an extra stern look to remain quiet; Sasuke, fingers laced together and eyes straight ahead, has zoned out, clearly having deemed the speech irrelevant; Sakura is watching Ino out of the corner of her eye, nervously chewing on her bottom lip. Kiba is more focused on giving Akamaru a belly rub, a large grin spread over his lips, than Iruka's speech; Hinata is watching him with a worried expression, clenched hands hidden in the sleeves of her baggy jacket; Shino is paying close attention to him, though his attention occasionally darts to his teammates.

Like this, it's easy to separate the genin who are on their way to excellency and those who won't begin heading there until they're faced with a great tragedy. This is his last chance to force those in the second category into the first one.

"Today, will be your final shinobi evaluations," he continues. "The main difference between previous evaluations and this one is that they will not be one-on-one independent critiques of your strengths and weaknesses; instead, they will be team evaluations. Your strengths and weaknesses will be laid out in front of your teammates. This is because, as of this moment, none of you can be evaluated as individuals. You can only be looked at as a team. The weakness of one of you is a weakness for all of you. The reverse is also true. The strength of one member is the strength of the entire team."

They all look uncomfortable. Ninja assessments occur at the beginning and end of every year at the academy. Its purpose is to provide each student with a goal for the year and feedback on how well they did accomplishing it. All the academy students who failed their jounin test have undergone their individual evaluations with additional input from the jounin who administered their test. This has always been a private affair, for obvious reasons; however, the need for privacy is over. There can be no privacy between teammates. A team cannot function without knowing the capabilities and limits of its members.

"Team 8, follow me. You will be the first to begin preparing for your future as ninja."

Naruto looks ready to revolt while Kiba cheers, leaping to his feet, so Iruka casts a weak auditory genjutsu on him. "You cannot undergo the evaluation without your sensei." Naruto who has been on the receiving end of many of these, usually when Iruka notices that he's confused about class material, but refusing to ask questions, doesn't react much beyond a deepening of his scowl as he slouches into his chair.

Kurenai spares Asuma a small smile before following after her team. There are three chairs in front of his desk, with an additional one behind them. Kiba throws himself into the chair closest to the door, his fingers clutching Akamaru's fur in an attempt to hide his nerves. There's a faint buzzing sound from Shino that takes forty-five seconds longer than normal for him to silence, as he settles into the chair farthest to the door. Hinata hasn't looked up from the ground since he called for her team to follow him, almost wilting in her seat between the boys. He taps his fingers twice on the desk and Hinata looks up at him instinctively. He gives her a soft smile, the same smile he always made sure to give her after a particularly bad grade.

"Now, then," he starts, pretending not to notice as Kurenai's presence fades from the room and he loses track of both her and her chair, "I think a good place to begin would be with your class rankings."

"But we already know those!" Kiba interrupts, a faint tinge of pink to his cheeks that must be the result of the class rank listing him at twenty-five.

Iruka clears his throat and Kiba shuts up, petting Akamaru who pushes his head into his hand. "Those rankings are inaccurate for a variety of reasons. For example, if you're sick on the day we have a taijutsu test and do poorly, your rank will drop, which isn't an accurate representation of your skills in regards to your peers."

Hinata is shrinking into herself, most likely wondering how far she's dropped from twenty-seven out of thirty students. She's worrying over nothing. Not only can her rank not drop very far, but her ranking is actually higher than listed not lower. Shino's head is tilted in curiosity because he must know, after all the times Iruka made him redo exercises to guarantee he knew the full extent of his student's abilities, that his ranking is higher than listed.

"Shino, you're actually ranked second in the class."

Kiba splutters, turning to face Shino, "You're behind Sasuke? Ino's going to be pissed when she finds you dropped her down in rank!"

Iruka would correct Kiba about that assumption, but he isn't here to discuss other teams.

Besides, they'll find out soon enough.

"Hinata," he taps his fingers on the desk again and makes sure she's looking him in the eye before he tells her because really wants to see the look in her eyes when she finds out, "you are ranked fifth in the class." There's a moment of confusion in her eyes when she doesn't comprehend what he's said. And then it sinks in. Her eyes light up with shock, joy, and disbelief.

"But she bombed every test!" Kiba is staring at her in awe, the slightest bit of hope in his eyes.

Hinata shrinks into herself and Iruka gives a jerk of his head towards her that has Kiba flinching slightly, leaning away from her. Akamaru scrambles out of Kiba's lap and into Hinata's, pressing his head into her hand until she obediently begins to pet him. "I told you, Kiba, those test aren't always the best measure of potential. Not everyone does well in traditional testing situations, so I've had to devise other methods to determine ability." Hinata is still giving him a wide-eyed stare filled with more disbelief that Iruka likes. "Besides, while Hinata never did well on the final tests, she always did fantastic on practice ones."

"You said those didn't count towards our grade!" Kiba shouts.

"I lied." There are other things Iruka had done to make sure he knew the full potential of his students, but those aren't important right now. "Hinata, I can honestly say you're one of the most competent students I've ever had the pleasure of working with." Hinata blushes, eyes dropping to her lap and Iruka allows it this time. "As for you, Kiba, you'll be happy to know that you are unofficially ranked tenth in the class."

Kiba whoops in excitement, Akamaru howling alongside him. "So, my written tests didn't matter?"

"Your written tests demonstrate that you don't learn well through lectures and reading and that the best way to check your comprehension on a subject is through an oral examination." Kiba's face scrunches up, parsing through what he was just told. His eyes widen in shock the moment he realizes that some of the detentions he received for minor infractions were not punishments, but a chance for Iruka to check how much of class material he understood. "Now, for your assessment, I will begin alphabetically."

The genin tense up again and the faint buzzing sound returns. Shino isn't quite able to fully silence it, though he manages to lower it two decibels. "Shino, you are one of the most talented shinobi in your class. You're smart, agile, and cunning. Your greatest assets are your observation skills and your patience. They allow you to wait for the best opportunity and strike. You're also very decisive, willing to make decisions and follow through on them. Furthermore, you're adaptable and flexible. If you notice a strategy isn't working out, you're willing to abandon it after a few attempts to salvage it and try something new.

"You are well-rounded in the three shinobi arts. While that is a good thing, your kikaichu are vulnerable during taijutsu and ninjutsu attacks. I'm not saying to slack off on your taijutsu training or avoid ninjutsu fight, but you are going to have to figure out a way to get through them with minimal loss to your hive. My recommendation is to pick up a couple earth jutsu as they act as a good shield to soak up damage and to learn a taijutsu style based strongly in dodging and acrobatics. Your chakra control is also very good making you a potential candidate for a medical jutsu, genjutsu, or ninjutsu specialty. Your chakra reserves are slightly above average.

"Your primary weaknesses are you're need for secrecy and your communication skills. There have been many instances during team exercises where you stumbled across vital information, but did not share it with your teammates. You can't do that anymore, Shino." He pauses, takes a deep breath because this is the moment. Either he gets through to Shino now or Shino will have to learn the hard way the consequences for keeping information from his team. "You can keep secrets from everyone else, but not your team. There are ways to convey information to your team without informing others of your actions, such as this." He captures Shino in the same auditory genjutsu he had used on Naruto. "I'm using an auditory genjutsu on you. Currently, you are the only person who can hear me

"Such as what?" Kiba is staring back and forth between them, confused.

"I'm using a genjutsu on Shino," Iruka explains, fine-tuning the technique enough that Shino is able to hear both inside and outside the technique. To Shino, he adds, "As you can see it's possible to become proficient enough in this jutsu to convey thoughts to someone while maintaining a conversation with someone outside of it." He cancels the jutsu, smiles at the way

Shino's eyebrows have raised slightly in interest. "If you can figure out a way to convey the information you hoard to your teammates without letting others around you onto the fact, you can turn your greatest weakness into a strength." He opens Team 8's file, skimming through Shino's to make sure he hasn't forgotten anything important. "Now, your lack of communication skills means you are not a competent leader and when you take on a support role, your teammates are often confused as to what you're doing because you haven't explained to them what you're planning. I don't need to explain why that's a problem, do I?" Shino shakes his head and Iruka nods, putting one copy of Shino's papers down on the corner of his desk, the other has a single sheet of his handwritten notes and a book attached to them by a paperclip, which he offers to Shino. "If you're interested, I've written out the steps for the jutsu I used down. The book has information on different ways to pass information around undetected. It's a library book, so you can return it to the library instead of dropping it off with me."

Shino reaches for them and Iruka can barely make out the smile on his lips, hidden by his jacket collar, "I am interested." The original copy of Shino's file vanishes from his desk between one blink and the next.

"Well, alright, then. Hinata, you're up next." He taps his fingers on his desk, giving her a reassuring smile once he has her attention. "Hinata, you are persistent, dedicated, and hard-working. You never stop trying until you get it right. These traits are some of your greatest assets. Furthermore, you have a keen eye for detail and are very good at reading people and sussing out their motivations. Because of this, you excel at conflict resolution and de-escalation. Your teamwork is very good and you can always be relied on to complete your part of any assignment, often even helping your teammates to complete their portion as well.

"Your taijutsu is excellent, your ninjutsu skills are very good, and your genjutsu skills are above average. You have a tendency to over rely on taijutsu, even when a situation would be better solved by a better method. I would highly recommend learning long distance ninjutsu that can be used in situations where taijutsu is not an option. Your chakra control is excellent and your chakra reserves are the same. You have the options to specialize in taijutsu, genjutsu, medical jutsu, or ninjutsu.

"Your greatest weakness is your lack of confidence." Hinata flinches, eyes dropping down to her lap, and Iruka taps the table again, refusing to continue until she looks back up. "You have a habit of not speaking up, even when you are correct. You second guess yourself, even when you are correct. You falter at the smallest mistake, even when it's not important. You don't do well under pressure because you lack faith in yourself and that is unacceptable." She drops his gaze again and Iruka taps the table. This is his moment to get through to her, to prevent her from learning to trust herself after she faces the consequences of not doing so. "I recommend you visit the Seduction Corps for acting lessons."

"Wait-What?" Kiba says what Iruka knows all three of them are thinking.

"The Seduction Corps is a branch of the Espionage Division, which is part of the Information Network. Because every person is attracted to a different type of person, those in the Seduction Corps are capable of mimicking any personality type. Training with the Seduction Corps is a requirement for anyone undertaking a long-term undercover mission. I want you to go to the Seduction Corps and learn how to pretend to be confident. Hopefully, it won't take you long to fall victim to the most dangerous aspect of undercover work."

"The most dangerous—Iruka-sensei, what are you planning?" Kiba is puffing up, body language aggressive as he sub-consciously moves closer to Hinata, ready to place himself between her and Iruka in a second.

It's a good sign. Something that speaks well to the potential of this team. "Do you know what the danger of long-term undercover work is?" The three of them stare at him blankly for a moment, but Iruka can see the light in their eyes the second they remember. Shino tilts his head enough that he can watch Hinata from the corner of his eye, while Kiba stares at her blatantly, jaw dropped.

Hinata doesn't answer him, too unconfident in her answer to say anything even though she's arrived at the correct answer. Iruka taps on the desk and Hinata lets out a small breath, as she straightens her back and looks at him. "They begin to believe their own lies."

"Precisely." He pulls Hinata's file out of the folder and scans it one final time, before placing the original where Shino's file had disappeared from and handing Hinata a copy of her own.

"You have the potential to be an outstanding shinobi, Hinata. I firmly believe that you can do anything you put your mind to. Unfortunately, that's not enough. In order for you to reach your full potential, you're going to have to stop holding yourself back." Hinata takes the file from him, clutching it to her chest. "If you decide to take me up on my advice, I've attached a permission slip to your file, granting you access to the lessons provided by the Seduction Corps. The first one will be tomorrow at 19:00, if you decide to go, all you have to do is show up and hand over the form." This is his last chance to get through to her. "I believe in you, Hinata, and I think it's time you believed in yourself."

Hinata nods, tears glistening in her eyes, "Yes, Iruka-sensei." He doesn't know if he got through to her, if she'll go to the lessons that she so desperately needs. He hopes so, there are no words to explain how much Iruka hopes she takes his advice, how much he hopes they'll all take his advice. This is the first class of graduating students Iruka has ever been the primary teacher for. These are the first genin he has ever sent out into the ninja ranks and he wants them to survive. No matter how unrealistic, Iruka wants every single one of his students to survive the first two years, the years with the highest mortality rate for genin, out in the field.

After the genin walk out of this building, there will be nothing more Iruka can do for them. So, he has to pour everything into these final moments.

Kurenai has already taken Hinata's file by the time Iruka has turned to Kiba. "Ready, Kiba?"

"Hell yeah, Iruka-sensei! Lay it on me!"

"Kiba, you are driven, energetic, and focused. Any time a challenge is laid in front of you, you work tirelessly to complete it. You are undeniably the best at teamwork and cooperation in your class." Kiba is prepared to launch into cheers and Iruka gives him a look to quiet him before he begins. "Your communication skills are superb and even when you strongly disagree with your teammates, you are known to put that aside and work for the benefit of everyone. This is easily your greatest asset.

"Your taijutsu and ninjutsu are both very good and your genjutsu is average. When in combat, you tend to get frazzled without Akamaru available to back you up. This is an issue for two reasons, Akamaru might not always be available to help you tag team your opponents and Akamaru is currently too small and fragile for some fights." Akamaru immediately perks up, barking in disagreement, but Kiba whistles once, rubbing the top of his head to quiet him down. "I have a few different recommendations to deal with this: earth jutsu to protect Akamaru; wind ninjutsu, which can be used to keep enemies away from Akamaru or send him to safety; or genjutsu to hide Akamaru's presence. Your chakra control is average and your chakra reserves are above average. Your options for the basic specialties are currently taijutsu or ninjutsu. If you would like to explore genjutsu or medical jutsu, you will need to refine your chakra control, which is something I recommend you do regardless.

"Your greatest weakness is your recklessness and impatience. You are liable to lose sight of everything else once your goal comes into sight. During class exercise, this usually resulted in you getting caught in an obvious trap. This flaw can be rectified if you listen to both of your teammates." Iruka pauses here, wonders how he should word this next bit, and then he remembers he's talking to Kiba. There's no point dancing around this, Kiba will benefit from the unfiltered truth. "When I assembled this team, I did it with the assumption that you would fill the role of team leader."

Kiba's mouth drops, he's staring in shock and Akamaru barks something at him that has his mouth snapping shut with a click. "You thought I would be the leader?" Iruka understands where the shock comes from. Kiba's written tests and his delinquent habits usually resulted in the other teachers assigning leader positions to other members in his group. Iruka has never bothered to assign a leadership position, too interested in how the team dynamics would work without his interference, as a result Kiba's low rank often meant the rest of his group refused to follow his lead.

But Kiba has the best teamwork skills for a reason. He worked with them regardless of the fact that his ideas where ignored or dismissed.

"I did. Neither Shino nor Hinata have the communication skills or the teamwork skills to take the leader position. However, they are both more patient and observant than you. It will be your job, Kiba, to make sure everyone on your team understands what your team is doing. It will be your job to make sure everyone's opinion is heard and everyone's input is known to each other. And if you're doing all that, then there's no way you can't be considered the leader." Kiba looks excited, hopeful, and worried all at the same time. "It won't be easy and there will be times when you disagree with every word they say, but as their leader it will be your job to come to a resolution for those disagreements." Iruka pulls out Kiba's file, leaving Kurenai's copy in the same spot as before. Like Shino's, there's a book here for Kiba alongside his academy assessment. "You won't be able to dismiss them without trying to understand what they're saying."

"I wouldn't do that!" Kiba snarls, the tinge of bitterness clinging to his words.

"I know," Iruka smiles, after he finishes skimming Kiba's file, "that's why I assigned you to this team. Shino will be the first to notice someone acting suspiciously, Hinata will tell you why, and it will be you who makes sure everyone decides on a course of action." He hands Kiba his file, trying to keep his smile at a reasonable size instead of the grin it wants to stretch into when Kiba ignores his assessment and examines the book.

Kiba willingly inspecting a book! This is a sign that something's gotten through to Kiba, Iruka isn't positive what exactly Kiba's taken from this discussion, but it's enough to make Iruka feel at ease letting the boy into the ninja ranks.

"The book is on the fundamentals of leadership, I hope you take the time to read it. It's a library book, so you can drop it off when you're done with it."

"Of course, I'm going to read it, Iruka-sensei!" Kiba is flipping through the book and as much as it pains Iruka to stop him, this assessment isn't finished, yet.

"Okay, then we can move onto the team evaluation." All three blink, staring at him confused.

"Wasn't that the team evaluation?" Kiba asks, head tilted in the same confused manner as Akamaru.

"No, those were individual assessments. Your team evaluation will explain the concept I had when I put you all together in a group. For example, all three of you will end up specialized in tracking."

"We will?"

"Yes, Kiba, you will. You're a strong tracking and scouting team, designed to be able locate any target regardless of distance. For short distances, where the enemy is hiding in the area, Hinata, your Byakugan will be able to find them instantly. For longer distances where they're out of her sight, Kiba, you and Akamaru can track their scent. And for instances where there is no scent trail, Shino, I know your kikaichu can be relied on to aid in your search.

"With two strong taijutsu users on the team, you'll be able to herd your enemies into any trap you set up. In sudden combat situations, Kiba, you and Akamaru can act as a distraction, keeping the enemy's attention on you. From there, Shino, you should be able to neutralize them with a single strike, you might want to learn some long-range ninjutsu for that. Which means, Hinata, it will be your job to ensure that no one sneaks up on your team and provide backup for Kiba should he and Akamaru become overwhelmed. Is everyone following me, so far?"

There's a chorus of agreement and Iruka pauses to gather his thoughts. "Tracking and scouting teams often need to capture their targets, as such you will need non-lethal ways to defeat your opponents. Hinata, your Gentle Fist style is perfect for this; however, on the off chance that your incapacitated, your team will need a second member capable of fulfilling this role. Shino, because your kikaichu can be relied to help you deal with neutralizing poison, I recommend you take up a poison specialty. Furthermore, if you're studying poisons, you might as well look into medical ninjutsu. You don't need to be a medic, but someone on your team should be proficient in dealing with injuries, both yours and your targets.

"Kiba, during transportation of your prisoner, Hinata will be the first to notice an ambush, as such her hands will need to be free so she can intervene at a moment's notice. If Shino's is covering the role of the medic, then he needs to conserve as much of his strength as possible, which means that the one on transport duty will be you. Your going to need to build up your physical strength as much as possible to guarantee that you can carry anyone regardless of whether or not you have chakra to boost your abilities.

"Your team lacks long-range attacks and small area affect damage. I'll leave it up to you to decide how to deal with that. One or two ninjutsu each would be the solution I recommend." There's one more file here, a collection of Iruka's entire thought process while he put this team together. He puts one copy down on the empty on the desk and hands the remaining three to each of the genin. "That's everything I have for you. I will be posting the unofficial class ranking after I finish speaking with the other teams, so if you're interested in how you actually compared to the rest of your peers, you're welcome to stick around to view it." He stands up, stretching his back and gives the genin a smile. "It's been a pleasure to work with you and I would wish you all luck, but quite frankly, I don't believe any of you need it."

The three genin are smiling at him, Hinata and Kiba tearing up slightly. Akamaru leaps from Hinata's lap, clambering up to Iruka's chest and licking his face, tail wagging furiously.

"Honestly," Kurenai says, sitting beside Kiba in the extra chair that she'd apparently moved without giving any indication, despite being in Iruka's direct line of sight, "I think I'm jealous."  
Kiba who had yelped and jumped out of his seat, instinctively placing himself between Kurenai and Iruka, relaxes from his defensive stance. "Jealous of what?"

"I don't think I've ever heard of such an in-depth assessment before."

"Iruka-sensei has always been more thorough with his advice than the other academy teachers," Shino informs her.

"Thorough?" Iruka is baffled. He doesn't consider what he just did as thorough. Most of it was just a summary of their academy files.

"The team assessment I went through when I became a genin basically boiled down to you have good chakra control and your bad at taijutsu. Learn either genjutsu or medical jutsu and improve your taijutsu to the bare minimum. I certainly did not get a file on myself nor an explanation of how my team was put together."

"That's not particularly helpful!" Iruka snaps, horrified at the idea of sending any genin out with such little information about how to improve themselves and survive in the harsh world of ninja.

"No," Kurenai agrees, watching him with an inscrutable look in her eyes, "it was not." She stands, not a sound to be heard despite the way her kimono swirls around her, "I will make good use of this information," she promises and exits the room.

Kiba takes off after her, throwing one more grin and wave Iruka's way, and Shino follows him after a polite bow. "I'm gonna stick around to see the rankings, what about you, Shino?"

Hinata stands from her desk, still clutching her file tightly to her chest. "Iruka-sensei?"

"Yes, Hinata?"

"I'm going to take the lessons." She tells him and Iruka feels his heart skip a beat. "I want to—I want to make sure that—that I don't let you down because—because you're the only one who—who—" She cuts herself off, some of the tears from earlier finally falling.

Iruka closes the distance between them, wraps one arm around her shoulders and pulls her close, letting her cry into his abdomen. This isn't the first time he's had to comfort her while she's upset like this, but he hopes the day when she no longer needs this sort of comfort comes soon. "Hinata, so long as you do your best, you will never let me down." He pulls back, wipes some of the tears from her face. "All I ask is for you to do your best. That's more than enough for me."

"But—"

"Hinata, I have faith in you. Now you just need to have faith in yourself." He pats her on the head and waits for her finish brushing the rest of her tears away. After a minute of slow breathing, Hinata gives him a soft smile and exits the room. Iruka takes a deep breath and then follows her.

One down, two more to go.


	2. Team 10

There isn't much of a difference in the room when Iruka returns. The other genin are still in the same position as when he had left. Team 8 has returned to their earlier spot, but this time Kurenai has joined them. They've pulled their chairs into a circle; and despite Kiba's enthusiastic gestures, Iruka can't hear a word they're saying. It makes Iruka wonder how Kurenai is pulling that off. Is her team in a genjutsu or is everyone else?

Kiba pulls out his folder, opened wide so his teammates can see. After a couple more wild gestures that culminate in Kiba turning to point at him, Shino and Hinata open their files, leaving them viewable by everyone. Kurenai catches his eye and nods, a soft smile on her lips.

Team 8 vanishes from sight.

Naruto yelps, jumping to his feet, "Where did they go?"

"They disappeared?" Chouji gasps, a handful of chips frozen before his mouth.

"Your jounin-sensei are very capable. They have much to teach you, if you're willing to learn." Iruka's aware that when he speaks, he sounds like he knows how Kurenai managed that. He suspects it is a genjutsu, but he has no idea who is trapped in it or what part of their perception it's changing.

Not that it matters. He might as well take the opportunity to encourage the genin to learn from their sensei. Cool jutsu are always an excellent motivator to foster a thirst for knowledge in anyone.

"Team 10, you're next." Ino leaps to her feet immediately. She's preparing to say something scathing to Sakura, so Iruka clears his throat. "Follow me quietly," he stops to give Ino a hard look before continuing, "and quickly." Shikamaru receives the same look Ino got, but where Ino had immediately straightened up and followed orders, Shikamaru lets out a truly pained groan, picking up his pace just enough to be considered walking faster. Chouji sends him a sympathetic smile, gently prodding Shikamaru to walk faster.

Iruka turns and exits the room, taking calming breaths to quell the sudden pressure he feels. This is his last chance to get through to them. If they walk out of this building still refusing to take their career seriously, there's nothing he can do for them.

They'll either die, or worse, one of their teammates will die. Surviving the guilt that your teammate died because you couldn't help them, because you didn't train to hard enough, because you never took things seriously that's not the sort of thing Iruka would ever wish upon his students. It's crushing. It's debilitating. It's unbearable.

Iruka has seen stronger shinobi crushed under the weight of that sort of burden.

Once he's in his office, he pulls Team 10's folder out of his desk and settles into his seat. Ino snags the chair directly in front of him, eager and determined; Shikamaru slumps into the chair closest to the door, which is the same one Kurenai had moved from the back; Chouji sits down between Ino and Shikamaru, absentmindedly fiddling with his bag of chips; and Asuma settles into the final seat beside Ino.

"To begin this meeting, I thought we could start with everyone's rank."

"Don't we already know those?" Chouji offers his bag of chips to Ino who scowls at him and returns her attention to Iruka. "Ino's second, I'm twentieth, and Shika's seventeen." He keeps nudging Ino with the bag of chips and his efforts pay off because after a minute of prodding, Ino flicks Chouji's nose and takes a couple of chips, the smallest grin tugging at her lips.

"Those ranks are based solely on test scores, which makes them inaccurate. Your unofficial ranking is a much more reliable measurement of your abilities in comparison to your peers."

"So, my rank might have gone down?" The bag of chips crinkles in Chouji's hand, but before Iruka can comfort him, Shikamaru nudges him.

"Your grade is more likely to have gone up than down."

"Speak for yourselves," Ino grumbles. She's clenching her jaw and Iruka knows she's running through a list of her classmates trying to determine if she's fallen in rank.

"Chouji, you are eighth in the class."

"What? For real?" The bag of chips ends up crushed in his grip and a manic grin spreads over his lips.

"For real," Iruka laughs. Ino looks very nervous, but Iruka's content to let her stew for a few minutes. It's not the nicest thing he could do, but it'll make the reveal more satisfying. "Shikamaru, you're twenty-seventh." For the first time, Iruka gets a reaction out of Shikamaru that isn't bored disinterest or annoyed compliance. It doesn't take a genius to realize that the three people below him are also the six people that failed the graduation exam and didn't get a chance to be assigned to a jounin-sensei.

He's shocked, startled, surprised.

Good. That's exactly how Iruka wants him to feel.

Ino looks like she's about to be sick. Iruka fights down a smile while he tells her, grim and serious, "Ino, you are ranked first in the class."

"I—I—what—wait—but—" She's stammering, words falling out of her mouth, fragments of a frazzled mind. "But what about Sasuke? If I'm first, what's Sasuke?" She seems to be returning to her senses, but only for the wrong reason.

"I'm not going to discuss Sasuke's ranking with you when I haven't spoken with him, yet." He stops talking here, giving Ino the most disapproving frown he can muster. Ino's habit of wanting to know everything about everyone isn't a habit he takes issue with. His problem is that she very rarely bothers to be sneaky about it and rarely hunts down information that can't be obtained simply by asking a target.

She wilts under his stare, from past experience she knows exactly why she's getting a death stare. "Sorry, Iruka-sensei." She's eyeing his desk while she says it. A sign that she's plotting to break into it and get a glance at Sasuke's file. A much more appropriate reaction for a ninja.

He places a hand on top of Team Ten's file, just in case she gets any ideas about how to distract him from the locked file in his desk.

"It sounds like this team isn't a traditional Ino-Shika-Cho. Did I end up with the mould-breaking team?"

"All three of the teams that passed their exam are mould-breaking teams, so yes." Iruka informs Asuma.

"What are mould-breaking teams?" Ino frowns.

"Mould-breaking teams are a team of genin who's skillset is well-balanced, though on paper they seem unfairly balanced. That's why I told Naruto two days ago that the best student is traditionally placed with the worst. Placing the academy student with the most potential on the same team as the student with the least is a terrible way to nurture their growth; therefore, teams are only created like this when academy tests are unable to fairly measure a student's skills. This usually happens in situations when one student excels in an area that we don't test.

"For example, a student who's mediocre across the three ninja basics but excels in impersonation, disguise, and interrogation skills may end up at the bottom of the class. In reality, they don't belong there and their rank is a result of being highly specialized early in their career. We call them mould-breaking students because they break the mould of how we would traditionally place genin into teams. Any team containing a mould-breaking student is automatically considered a structured team instead of a formless one."

"Wait," Ino holds up one hand, "does that mean teams without mould-breakers can be formless or structured?"

There's a cigarette in Asuma's mouth, but Iruka has no idea when the man pulled it out nor when he lit it. He takes a deep drag, chuckling out plumes of smoke. "Exactly right, little lady. Depending on how Iruka split you up will determine if your team is structured or formless. Structured teams are usually grouped together because their skillsets complement each other; formless teams are placed together because they match physical capabilities.

"They match physical capabilities?" Chouji asks. "What does that mean?"

"It means that physically they're all the same. They run at the same speed for the same distance. They can lift about the same amount of weight. They have the same accuracy with kunai and shuriken." Asuma takes another slow drag from his cigarette.

"Why would you build a team like that?" Ino gasps. "If everyone is the same, how do they know what position they fill on the team?"

"The benefit of a team like that," Asuma explains, "is that the genin get to decide that for themselves. If everyone has the same baseline, then it really doesn't matter who fills what role. Genin from formless teams tend to end up highly specialized as a result of being able to experiment with the different specialties and focusing on the one they enjoy the most; whereas, genin from structured teams tend to end up well rounded because they have to learn to fill in the gaps that come from everyone having similar skills. For example, a combat team might require everyone to learn the basics of tracking because no one can reliably do it when they first begin." Asuma will make a good teacher for these three. He's patient and willing to answer questions. And these kids will ask a lot of questions.

"In the end," Iruka adds, "teams end up determined by whether I think you'll be better off figuring out your skillset on your own of if I tell you."

"Any more questions?" Asuma blows a perfect ring of smoke, it halos over his head, twists and turns into several different shapes before disappearing.

Chouji and Shikamaru look far too impressed with the trick and Iruka gives the man the most disapproving glare he can muster in an attempt to shame him into putting out his cigarette. "Yeah," Ino wrinkles her nose, "do you know smoking is bad for you?"

The cigarette almost slips from between Asuma's lips. Iruka gives Ino an approving smile and she winks at him while Asuma chuckles, "With good chakra control, there are ways around that."

"Moving on," Iruka resists the urge to glare at Asuma because that's not the sort of information you should ever give to young impressionable children, "I will now begin with your assessment. As always, I'll begin alphabetically." Ino and Chouji look uncomfortable, but Shikamaru yawns, eyes drooping shut. "Chouji, you are passionate, enduring, and reliable. You always do your best to tackle any challenge presented to you. Your greatest asset is your ability to follow orders. Often times, during class exercises, your ability to stick to an agreed upon plan is the reason your group managed to succeed their task or salvage a failed one." Chouji is beginning to look embarrassed, eyes dropping to the table, and that won't do. Iruka won't have any of his students ashamed of being willing to do what they're told. "Most people put more stock in leadership; however, good leaders are worthless unless they have competent followers."

"He's right, kid. There's no point in having a leader if there aren't any followers." Asuma takes a deep drag of his cigarette. "Finding a good leader is easy. They're a dime a dozen. But a good follower? Someone who can be trusted to stick to the plan and doesn't need to be strong-armed into doing as told? Now there's a novelty any team would be lucky to have."

There's a faint pink to Chouji's cheeks, the bag crinkles in his hand. "I know all of this. You tell me all the time, Iruka-sensei."

"I'd stop telling you, if you'd stop doubting me." Iruka makes sure to be firm, but gentle with his reprimand. Some of his students may need an extremely firm talking to without any of the gentleness that comes with reminding them that it's okay that they've made mistakes because they've been trying their best, but Chouji isn't one of them. Chouji needs to be reminded that he's a good ninja and he must ignore all of his naysayers. He's doing his best, he's trying his hardest, he's giving his all, which is more than some of his classmates can claim.

It's not the time for that. Soon. Soon he'll begin dealing with his students that couldn't be bothered to put any effort in. For now, his primary focus is on making sure Chouji know he's on the right path to becoming a powerful shinobi.

"Your physical conditioning is the best in the class, though I have noticed that you tend to avoid and slack off during speed exercises. I don't where you got the idea that you can't be fast and agile, but I do know it's wrong and needs to disappear. Work on your speed and footwork. Both are important for people who specialize in taijutsu, as you currently do. Your taijutsu is excellent, both your ninjutsu and genjutsu are average. Your chakra control is average and your chakra reserves are above average. Of the three basic shinobi arts, you currently have the option to specialize in taijutsu, with slightly better chakra control, you will also have the option of a ninjutsu specialty.

"Your greatest weakness is your overreliance on your taijutsu. You won't always have the luxury of getting close enough to your opponents to take them out with hand-to-hand combat. I highly recommend picking up a weapon to help you when you can't touch your opponent, and depending on your choice of weapon, it can also help extend your reach quite a bit. You'll also greatly benefit from learning some long ranged ninjutsu for the same reason.

"Taijutsu is one of the basic shinobi skills. It's wonderful that you excel at it, but that doesn't mean you can continue to neglect the other two skills." This is the moment. This is the moment when Iruka will either sway Chouji to a better path or fail him completely. "The only way to get good at something is to practice it." Iruka maintains eye contact, tries to will his own desperation for Chouji to succeed into the boy. "No more taking the easy route, Chouji. You're not going to be able to bolster a failing grade with a skill you're good at anymore. Your teammates are depending on you to be the best ninja you can be and the only way you can do that is by practicing in all the ninja arts, especially the ones that don't come as easily to you. You need to keep practicing in them, until they are no longer a liability. Unless of course, that's too difficult and you would rather let Ino and Shikamaru down."

"No way, Iruka-sensei!" Chouji protests, back straight and the Will of Fire burning in his eyes. "I can do it! I won't let anyone down!"

It's exactly what Iruka wanted to see. He takes Chouji's file, returning a hand to the top of Team Ten's folder because he really can't trust Ino, and flips through it one final time.

"Do you really think I could be fast and agile, Iruka-sensei? Everyone in my clan uses a slow and sturdy form of taijutsu."

Right now, Chouji fights like his father who fights like his father who fights like his father. It's an unbroken chain, most prevalent in the Ino-Shika-Cho legacy. Chouji fights like every other Akimichi out there. Iruka's problem with this is that the Akimichi's have been around for a very long time. If you know how to fight one Akimichi, you know how to fight all of them. Iruka doesn't want to send Chouji out in the field when he relies so heavily on a known combat-style. Chouji doesn't need to change everything about how he fights, he doesn't need to abandon his family's teaching, he just needs to make it his own.

Iruka doesn't want Chouji in the field relying on the Akimichi combat-style, he wants him to go out there comfortable with the Chouji combat-style, a style that uses the Akimichi style as a base, but modifies it to fit an individual. He doesn't know what that sort of style would look like, but a weapon would be a good start, as would some long ranged ninjutsu. Iruka doesn't know what direction he's sending Chouji in, he doesn't know what direction he'll be sending any of his students in, he just knows that he wants them to enter the ninja corps knowing that they aren't to be satisfied with meeting the expectations of their clan, but they must strive to shatter their own limits and be the best form of themselves that they can possibly achieve.

"I think you can do anything you put your mind to. If you decide to create a taijutsu style of your own, cherry-picking parts from your clan's signature style then, quite frankly, I believe you can do it. And more importantly, I'm sure your team will be more than happy to help you."

"Absolutely," Ino cheers, punching him in the arm. Shikamaru nudges Chouji with an elbow and gives him a small smile.

"I know a jounin who specializes in taijutsu who would be more than happy to help." Asuma chuckles around his cigarette, finally looking up from Chouji's file. "Way more than happy to help."

Iruka did not hand over Chouji's file. He's had one hand on top of the folder this entire time to prevent Ino from taking a peek before he is ready to let her see. Just because he approved of her nosy habits, doesn't mean he'll ever make it easy for her. If she wants to take a look at something without Iruka's permission, she's going to improve herself to the point where he can't stop her.

Regardless, why hadn't he noticed that the file was missing. When he opened it up, he should have realized Asuma had taken one. It hadn't even occurred to him that he had to hand the extra copy over. It is a bit terrifying that somehow Asuma had managed to make him forget to do something essential to this meeting.

"Your file looks good, Chouji," Asuma continues. "If you're willing to put in the work, you'll make one helluva shinobi."

Ino is staring at Asuma with the same sort of reverence Chouji and Shikamaru had given him earlier. "How? When? Iruka-sensei's hand has been there the entire time! How did you—"

"Woah, calm down there, little lady. I'm a jounin, it's kinda expected of me to be able to steal information from a chunin."

It's true, even if it's annoying.

"But, how did you do it? I've been watching his hand the whole time!"

"Have you now?" Asuma chuckles. "Are you absolutely positive about that." He exhales another ring of smoke that swirls around the room, changing its shape into that of a bouquet, which settles above Ino's lap. When it dissipates a second later, Ino's file is resting in her lap.

Ino gasps, picking up her file and flipping through it for a second, before Asuma tugs it out of her hands.

"It only takes a second to steal something. If you can get your target to look away for one second than you can steal from them every single time."

"Woah. You're kinda cool for an old man." Ino tells him.

Iruka clears his throat, drawing their attention back to him, and hands Chouji his file along with a book. "I'm giving you a library books about weapons and how they can be incorporated into taijutsu. If you'd like, you can take a look through it and see if you can find any inspiration for where you want to take your taijutsu."

"Thanks, Iruka-sensei!" Chouji cheers, unbothered when Ino pulls the file out of his hands to take a look at it.

"You're welcome, Chouji. Now, Shikamaru, you're up next."

Shikamaru sighs, slouching deeper into his seat, which is rather impressive. Iruka forces himself to ignore it.

It's time.

"Shikamaru, my primary recommendation is that you exit the ninja program."

The silence is immediate. Ino and Chouji startle slightly, jerking to stare at Shikamaru before their gaze slowly shifts back to Iruka. There's a simmer of anger boiling in their eyes. Asuma cocks his head to the side slightly, eyebrows raised. His expression settles into something more neutral as he skims through Shikamaru's file that he had apparently stolen with Chouji's and Ino's.

"Quite frankly, I had no intention of passing you, but I was overruled by some of the other instructors."

"That's not fair, Iruka-sensei! Shikamaru's a good ninja." Chouji cracks first, rushing to Shikamaru's defence.

"He's not. Shikamaru is one of the worst ninjas in the class." Iruka corrects him, never breaking eye contact with Shikamaru whose bored gaze has sharpened into something intense.

"He can't be the worst," Ino protests. "It's not like he's Naruto."

"Naruto," Iruka says, containing his indignation, "is an infinitely better ninja than Shikamaru." Asuma gives him a look that says he noticed the bias, but none of the kids have, so Iruka considers it a moot point.

"How can Naruto be a better ninja than Shikamaru?" Chouji is offended, jumping to his feet and looking ready to fight. Ino will probably join in without hesitation. Still, Iruka doesn't look away from Shikamaru.

"He puts in effort," Iruka says, voice sharp and cutting. Chouji and Ino freeze, and Iruka's aware of the almost guilty looks they throw at Shikamaru, despite not seeing them. Because they're all aware they can't argue that.

They can't defend Shikamaru from an accusation like that.

"Shikamaru, you are in the worse physical condition in your entire class. There are students in the classes below you who are in better shape. This would be forgivable if it was something out of your control, if you naturally had a weak constitution and did your best to make up for it in other ways, if you tried to improve despite it being physically impossible for you. But we both know that's not true. You're not out of shape because of nature, you're out of shape because you're lazy and don't want to put the work in."

"It's not like being in shape is the most important thing," Chouji says, softly. "Shika's really smart, Iruka-sensei."

"Is he?" Iruka asks amused. He knows Shikamaru's smart. Shikamaru knows that Iruka knows he's smart, but that doesn't change anything. "And how am I supposed to know that? From the tests he only bothered to answer half the answers on or from the tests he slept through and handed in blank?"

They wince. Both Ino and Chouji wince and their eyes drop to the floor. "Still, Iruka-sensei, don't you think you're being a little hard on him," Ino mumbles.

"Yes," Iruka agrees with her. "I'm being very hard on him."

Iruka can sense her irritation instantly, but continues to ignore it. Shikamaru still hasn't said anything, though his hands have tightened into fists.

"Then why are you doing this, sensei?" Chouji sounds betrayed when he speaks, as if he can't believe Iruka would do this to one of his students.

He clearly has no idea how far Iruka will go to prepare his students for the real world.

"Because Survivor's Guilt is hard enough to cope with when there's nothing that could have been done to change the situation." Asuma says, exhaling another mouthful of smoke. "It's a whole other ordeal if you have something to regret, like not putting any effort into your training?"

"Survivor's Guilt?" Chouji asks, "What's that?"

"I've heard of that," Ino murmurs. "That's like when you go on a mission with someone and they die, but you live and you blame yourself, right?"

"That's the bare bones of it," Asuma agrees. "Iruka is giving Shikamaru hell because he's diagnosed him with a very high chance of experiencing it as a result of his laziness."

"But if he's lazy," Ino protests, "wouldn't that mean he's more likely to die than Chouji or I?"

"That's where being smart comes into play." Asuma taps his cigarette and ashes fall, but they vanish before they hit the ground. "His intelligence means that Shikamaru is the most likely to survive if there's a life-and-death situation when I'm not around."

Shikamaru flinches.

"If we were to get ambushed, I wouldn't be able to order you to safety because Shikamaru wouldn't be able to get out of range fast enough for it to be worth it. I'd have to settle for trying to protect you and deal with our assailants at the same time."

There's another flinch, but this time Shikamaru's skin slowly begins to pale.

"If the three of you need to rush somewhere to gain medical help or call for reinforcements, you most likely won't be able to do it unless someone stays behind to distract an enemy because Shikamaru will slow you down. Ideally in a situation like that, you'd leave Shikamaru behind, but realistically, he won't be capable of keeping anyone from chasing you unless he gets the drop on them. If they slip past him for even a second, they will outrun him."

Shikamaru's trembling. Iruka feels terrible, but he does nothing to stop Asuma from speaking. Shikamaru needs to hear this. He needs to know that all of his slacking off has turned him into a liability and deadweight.

All the brains in the world won't make up for shoddy physical conditioning. If 'Heaven' doesn't exist, enrich your knowledge and prepare for the chance. If 'Earth' does not exist, run the fields in search of an advantage. A ninja needs both. It's their responsibility and duty to train both. Shikamaru couldn't be bothered, which is why they're having this conversation.

"A team is only as strong as its weakest link. Shikamaru, when it comes to the physical components of this team, you are the weak link. An extremely weak link." Iruka isn't gentle with this reminder. He tried gentle already and Shikamaru brushed it off without giving the advice a single thought. "If you don't want to leave the ninja program entirely, you could join the Cryptology Department or even one of the Information Departments, you would enjoy either one of those."

"I want to work in the field," Shikamaru says, voice shaky and unsure. He doesn't sound like the same bored genius Iruka's gotten used to.

"Are you sure?" Iruka asks. "You've spent this past year wasting my time and squandering your potential."

Chouji and Ino both have chakra flares that indicate there's an outburst coming, but Asuma does something Iruka doesn't see that prevents it.

Shikamaru hesitates, but nods.

Not good enough.

"Promise," Iruka orders.

"I promise," Shikamaru parrots immediately to him. But, it's not good enough. A promise like that could never be good enough in the long run.

"Not to me," Iruka corrects. He stands up, walks around the desk to stand beside Shikamaru. After pulling the boy to his feet, Iruka directs him to face his teammates, both who have their mouths covered by Asuma. "Promise your teammates you will do everything in your power to catch up to them. Promise them you will shatter your own limitations and always do your very best."

Shikamaru doesn't respond, staring at his teammates with an expression Iruka can only guess at.

"A team is only as strong as its weakest link. Every time you refuse to push yourself to your full potential, you hold your teammates back and stop them from reaching their own." Iruka forces himself to stop speaking here. He can't keep beating a dead horse. Either Shikamaru will promise or he won't. Iruka can't force the promise.

Not if he wants Shikamaru to take it to heart and keep it.

"I promise," Shikamaru mutters, "to do my best and not to hold you back. I'll grow strong, so you can too." His voice is quiet, but firm.

It resonates inside Iruka's head and he hopes with all his might that Shikamaru means it. That he means it and sticks to that promise.

Asuma blows out another smoke ring, a tiny smirk tugging at his lips, and Iruka is happy enough that he doesn't bother to glare at him. He rests one hand on Shikamaru's shoulder. "Then let's go over your assessment so you know where you stand."

"Okay, Iruka-sensei." Shikamaru agrees, plopping back into his seat.

When Iruka settles down into his chair, he notices immediately that Shikamaru is paying attention to him. It's the most attention Iruka has ever gotten from him, including when Iruka tested him for the taijutsu portion of the graduation exam. "Shikamaru, you are intelligent, crafty, and strategic. Your greatest asset is your mind. You're able to deduce your enemies motives and plans from barely more than a glance. You often think many moves ahead and make preparations in case there's a sudden change to your opponents actions, forcing them into traps they had thought they had avoided.

"Your taijutsu is well-below average, your ninjutsu and genjutsu are also below average. I've noticed that you rely heavily on your use of your family's jutsu, which would be fine if you weren't extremely reliant on light sources, which you can't always control. To get around that, I recommend polishing up your taijutsu because I highly doubt it matters where the sun is positioned if you're punching your opponent in the face." Shikamaru physically reacts to that, eyes wide and sitting up straight, and Iruka wonders if the thought had never occurred to him. It's possible it hadn't. Shikamaru is a Nara and Iruka can't think of a single Nara who willingly engages in taijutsu. "Your chakra control is mediocre as are you reserves. Until you polish up your control and physical conditioning, you only have the option for a ninjutsu specialty.

"Your primary weakness is your physical conditioning and laziness, which we have already discussed, and your tendency to wait. You like to gather as much information as possible before you move. In the short term that's not a problem, but realistically, information gathering is a luxury. If it's available get it, if it's vital get it, if it would be nice to have, but ultimately unimportant then don't bother waiting around for it. Waiting around for information can be just as dangerous as acting without it. Find a balance and you'll be good to go." Iruka picks up Shikamaru's file and flips through it very quickly to make sure he hasn't missed anything. He hands it to Shikamaru a sheet of paper attached to it. "I've attached a customized training schedule to it that will help you get up to the genin standard physical conditioning in four months, if you decide to follow it."

"A customized training schedule?" Asuma chuckles. "What am I supposed to do if you give him that? Stand around looking pretty?"

Iruka rolls his eyes. "Don't pretend the only thing you were going to do with them was physical conditioning. I'm sure you have plenty of tricks up your sleeves that you can teach them."

"Thank you, Iruka-sensei." Shikamaru mumbles, skimming through the training schedule. Ino is half crawled into Chouji's lap, so she can snatch his assessment and Chouji is reading the schedule over his shoulder.

"You're welcome, Shikamaru. Do your best, okay?"

Shikamaru nods, just once, and seems to zone out once more. However, when Iruka turns to Ino, he notices the way Shikamaru watches him, eyes focused in a way they hadn't been seconds ago.

It leaves Iruka feeling delightfully hopeful.

"Ready, Ino?"

"I was born ready," Ino chirps, sitting back in her seat, both Chouji's and Shikamaru's assessments in her hands.

"Ino, you are ambitious, realistic, and charismatic. You are very good at dragging the best out of people, even if you have to trick them to get the results you want. Without a doubt, you are the best shinobi in the class. You're greatest strength is your ability to read a situation and manipulate it to your liking. Whether that means convincing someone to do something very stupid or conning them into believing a very stupid lie, somehow you always find a way to benefit from any situation.

"Your taijutsu is above average and your ninjutsu and genjutsu are well above average. I have noticed, though, that you tend to shy away from taijutsu, using it as a last resort, even when you would be able to finish your opponent quickly in a straight hand-to-hand combat fight. If you can take them out with taijutsu, you should. There's no point doing something fancy or wasting chakra when you don't have to. Of the three basic arts, you have the option to specialize in ninjutsu, taijutsu, or genjutsu. Additionally, your above average chakra control gives you the option to specialize in medical jutsu.

"You're greatest weakness is your lack of focus." Iruka holds up a hand when Ino looks ready to protest. "You should have been the Rookie of the Year, Ino. However, during the taijutsu portion of the graduation exam, Sakura barely passed and that took its toll on you. I watched as you went from flawlessly completing the exam to bombing your taijutsu section because you were too distracted by what was going on with Sakura. That cost you the title. Furthermore, it's unacceptable to have that sort of attention lapse in the field."

"He's right," Asuma chimes in. "If someone goes down in the field, the only way you'll be able to help them is if you finish off your opponent first. You gotta learn how to block that sort of stuff out and focus on what's in front of you. It's the only way you'll be able to safely help your teammates."

"I'll finish this off with one more word of advice. I don't know what's going on with you and Sakura and I don't know why you ended your friendship, but I highly recommend that you patch things up with her." Iruka really doesn't know exactly what happened between them. He knows it involves Sasuke in some way, but other than that he's not sure.

It was a slow and unfortunate process because it cost both of them. Though their friendship hadn't seemed to be officially over until a few days ago, unofficially the ruined relationship had been occurred roughly halfway into the school year. The results were blindly obvious to anyone who could be bothered to look. Ino's theoretical work had dropped from near perfect to above average, allowing Shino and occasionally Sasuke to edge her out on written tests. Sakura, on the other hand, had experienced the drop in her physical conditioning and taijutsu.

She had gone from very good for a civilian student, placing her somewhere in the upper half of the class, to barely acceptable for a student. Unfortunately, at this stage in her career, the physical portion of Shinobi work is more important than the theoretical portion. If a genin doesn't know something, then their teammate can fill them in on it. It's not too big of a deal. If a genin can't run a distance in a certain amount of time, nothing can be done unless someone carries them, which is an incredibly unreasonable expectation for their genin teammates.

"But, she's the one—" Ino tries to argue, but Iruka knocks sharply on the desk and she quiets down.

"As I said, I don't know what happens and I don't need to know. I'm just saying, Sakura used to be your best friend. The two of you made each other better ninja. You were both benefitting greatly from your friendship and I really can't imagine why either of you would want to end things over Sasuke."

"I thought you didn't know why we're fighting," Ino huffs at him.

"I don't."

"Sasuke? What the hell's a Sasuke?" Asuma asks, as if he has no idea who the last Uchiha is, taking another drag from his cigarette.

"The cutest boy in the village." Ino informs him immediately, eyeing him in the suspicious way she does when she thinks someone's trying to manipulate her.

"Oh, little lady—"

"You know my name is Ino, right?"

"—don't throw away a friendship for a boy. Trust me, you're going to be so busy for the next several months, you won't even have time to think about boys. Besides, you really shouldn't even consider dating until you're a chunin."

"Wait? Why?" She jumps to her feet, turning on Asuma, only to be forced back into her seat by a mildly amused Chouji.

"Because your time as a genin is supposed to teach you survival skills. Gaining your chunin rank proves that you have the skills to survive a variety of situations."

"But, we already learned survival skills. Iruka-sensei was very thorough." Chouji pipes up.

"You're misunderstanding me." Asuma sighs. "Genin, despite going on the lowest ranked missions, technically have the highest mortality rate." There's a brief pause when the other children exchange worried glances. "It's not as bad here in Konoha because we assign genin to a jounin, but other countries lose a vast majority of their genin on missions. They sustain these losses by having a bigger military force, but quite frankly that doesn't change their mortality rates. When I decide you're ready for the chunin exams, you'll be squaring off genin who have survived incredibly dangerous situations without a jounin to teach them. They will all assume that you are soft and haven't experienced danger without a buffer and they won't be wrong.

"If you can make chunin, beating many of them out for the rank, you will prove that you're capable of surviving dangerous and hostile situations without the need for supervision, which means you can do what you want with your time. Before you make chunin, though? If you have time to date, you aren't training hard enough nor are you taking full advantage of having a jounin sensei. If it takes you too long to make chunin, quite frankly, you'll be dropped from my care and placed into the Genin Corps as it will be safe to assume that you don't have the potential or ambition to go further and there's no reason to tie up a jounin for longer than necessary. I sincerely hope that doesn't happen to any of you, but if you waste time on dating instead of training it just might."

"You can fight over Sasuke later, Ino. For now, though, you'd be better off with a friend in Sakura," Iruka tells her gently. He hands over her file to the girl, having skimmed through it while Asuma lectured his students. "The book I'm giving you is about how to stay focused and ignore distractions. I encourage you to go through it and see if any of it will help with that wandering mind of yours."

"Thanks, sensei!" Ino flips through her file rapidly, comparing it to both Shikamaru's and Chouji's.

"Well, the only thing left now is for me to explain how I put this team together." Iruka smiles at the kids, subtly checking the chakra outside the room, and he thinks he senses Kakashi, but the sensation vanishes fast enough that Iruka can't be sure.

Asuma cocks his head, chakra flicker out of existence and proving Iruka hadn't been as subtle as he thought. "Are you going to leave anything for me to do? Not that I'm complaining, but I'm started to feel cheated. My genin evaluation amounted to your good at ninjutsu and taijutsu, stick to those."

"Your instructor was garbage, then." Iruka scowls because this is the second complaint he's gotten about being too thorough and it's starting to make him a little self-conscience. Is he doing this right? This is the first time he's had genin evaluations to undergo. These are the first genin he's graduating into the forces.

He'd gotten a similar evaluation when he'd first become a genin. Not from the academy instructors, but from Ibiki-sensei a couple of weeks after training under him. Iruka remembers the man complaining the whole time about how the academy hadn't provided him with nearly enough information about his team of genin and to avoid that unnecessary stress to this year's jounin sensei, Iruka's providing the information now, so they don't have to waste time figuring it out on their own.

"I'll say," Asuma chuckles.

"Anyways, the three of you are designed as an information gathering team. Ino, you get the information; Shikamaru, you decode or hide it; Chouji, you're the muscle or distraction."

"Sounds simple enough," Ino chirps.

"It's really not." Iruka disputes. "A lot of your work will involve infiltration which has the potential to end horribly if you're caught. On top of gaining access to the information, Ino, you're going to need to be able to memorize anything you can't swap out. There's not a lot of point in stealing information if others know you took it, so you'll be memorizing boring tidbits that are pages long. To help you gain access, I'm going to have to recommend both taking acting lessons from the Seduction Corps and picking up a couple genjutsu. I've given Hinata the permission slip for acting lessons. The first one is tomorrow at 19:00, if you'd like to take them, feel free to join her."

"You've even arranged for supplementary lessons for them. Are you sure there's something left for me?" Asuma looks far too amused, so Iruka sends a scathing glare his way.

"I'm definitely going to show up, Iruka-sensei." Ino chirps.

"Good. Now, many of the things you'll be looking at will be coded and when you drop off information, you'll have to code it for security purposes. I've arranged for you to take lessons with the Code-Breaking section of the Information Department, Shikamaru. The first lesson will be at the same time as Ino's. If you're interested all you have to do is show up in room 304A2."

"I'll be there," Shikamaru mumbles. "It'll be a nice break from the hell you call a training schedule."

"Don't worry, Shika, I'll go through the exercises with you." Chouji says, "It won't be nearly as bad if you have someone with you."

"I'll tag along as well," Ino laughs. "Someone's has to laugh as Chouji drags your tired ass to meetup with Asuma-sensei."

That was exactly what Iruka was hoping for. He shares a small grin with Asuma who looks almost excited to start working with his team.

"Chouji, your teammates will often be very focused on their task, which means it's your responsibility to deal with outside threats. You're going to want to pick up detection skills like chakra sensing. And you're definitely going to need to learn how to deal with multiple opponents. I assume Asuma will be more than happy to teach you this while your teammates are at their other lessons."

Chouji glances at Asuma who grins at him. "Kid, by the time I'm finished with you, you're going to be an impenetrable wall. Nobody'll be getting passed you to go at your teammates."

"In pure combat situations, your roles are simple, but they do overlap," Iruka continues. "Chouji herds the enemy, Shikamaru either prepares a trap or springs it, and Ino helps herd the enemy or springs the trap. Your team currently lacks a way to attack long-ranged, but I'll leave you to figure that out. Ninjutsu is the way most people go about it, though."

Iruka resists the urge to stretch, these meetings are starting to stress him out and he's really not looking forward to dealing with Team 7, despite Naruto being on that team. He's not even sure if Kakashi is there for him to do so. Maybe he'll get a break. He hands each genin a small folder on their team breakdown, only remembering there's one for Asuma when he sees the man skimming though it. Jounin are so annoying.

"That's everything I have for you. I'll be posting the unofficial rankings after I speak with Team 7, if you're interested in how your peers truly stacked up, I recommend hanging around until then. Furthermore, I will be having a discussion with Sakura, so Ino, I hope you stay long enough to speak with her afterwards." Iruka hopes this stupid feud between them is over before they leave the building. "Congratulations on making genin, now go out there and raise some hell for me."

Iruka's former students all look so happy and proud that Iruka can't quite contain his own grin and beaming pride. "Thanks for everything, Iruka-sensei!" Ino launches herself over the desk and hops into his arms, pecking him on the cheek.

Iruka responds by smacking her hand away from his desk drawer. "Nice try."

"Damn," Ino grumbles, hopping back over the desk to her teammates. "One of these days, you're not going to be able to stop me."

"I'm looking forward to it," he tells her.

"Every teachers proudest moment is when their student surpasses them." Asuma informs her.

"So, when I can kick your ass—"

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves, little lady." Asuma blows out another smoke ring and Iruka desperately wishes he'd stop making that filthy habit look impressive to the new genin. "It'll be awhile before you can take me."

"Oh, yeah," Ino's puffing up, horribly offended, but Iruka tears himself away from the spectacle when Shikamaru approaches him, making the effort to walk around the desk to stand beside him.

"Your primary recommendation was that I quit the ninja academy, but you had a training schedule and extra lessons prepared for me."

"I did."

Shikamaru is watching him with contemplative eyes. "Why bother if I'm one of the worst ninja in the class?"

"Because you have the potential to be amazing." Iruka swivels the chair enough to face Shikamaru. "It was incredibly obvious that you needed some kind of wake up call in order to bring it out. I'd rather you have it here, within the school, then out there, on the battlefield."

Shikamaru nods, still not quite revealing what he's thinking. After a moment, he sighs and looks away. "No wonder you're everyone's favourite teacher."

Iruka blinks, not quite sure what to do with that statement, but Shikamaru's already heading for the door, followed by Chouji who drags a mutinous Ino along.

"I can't believe you put that idea in his head," Asuma chuckles. "Can you imagine a Nara that's proficient in taijutsu? That kid's going to be a monster."

"That was the intention," Iruka pulls Team 7's folder out of his desk, and for good measures clutches it close to his chest.

Asuma is clearly amused, though he makes no attempt to swipe it from him, walking towards the door. "You gave me a few diamonds in the rough, all that's left is for me to cut and polish 'em. It'll be fun as hell to see where they go from here." He exits, leaving Iruka to his thoughts.

Two down, one left.


	3. Sakura

For the record, the explanation on chakra control is basically what Ebisu tells Naruto when Kakashi passes him over to work on Naruto's chakra control, which means it is canon. I didn't make that shit up, which is fantastic because it explains what's going on with Naruto's Clone Jutsu really well and gives me an awesome option for what to do with Naruto's character development.

* * *

Iruka takes a couple of minutes to mentally prepare himself for the cluster fuck that will be Team 7's evaluation. The construction of that team had been a nightmarish process that Iruka can honestly admit that he has not quite recovered from. Team 7 was never supposed to exist in its current state and Iruka has no idea how the three of them managed to pass Kakashi's test when so many others had failed.

That's not important, though.

All that matters is that they passed and are ready to go into the field. It's Iruka's job to give them the tools they need to survive and it's Kakashi's job to teach them how to use those tools. If he can get through to them, they'll be fine. But he's not sure if he can. This team has more problems than all the other teams combined. It would be impressive if not for the fact that this team seems designed for failure, despite the solid theory behind it.

He sighs, places Team 7's folder on his desk, and forces himself to stop stalling.

Team 10 is sitting together by the front of the classroom, softly discussing their evaluation, Ino's eyes occasionally flicking over to Sakura. After the fifth time, Asuma blows a ring of smoke into her face. "Focus, little lady." Ino flushes, straighten her back, and redirects all her attention back to her team. Ino says something, but Iruka can't quite make out the words. The sounds are too muffled, garbled. He has no idea how Asuma's pulling that off.

Sakura is sitting quietly beside Sasuke, wet eyes trained down at her lap, and Naruto is glaring so hard at Sasuke, Iruka's surprised the boy hasn't burst into flames.

He's not sure he wants to know.

Kakashi isn't in the room. Iruka's not entirely sure how he's supposed to give Team 7 their evaluations without their jounin-sensei present, but he's wondering if he's going to be forced to. "Team 7," he begins, hiding his own confusion and frustration, eyes darting over to Asuma who gives a subtle nod towards the door, "follow me."

"Eh?" Naruto jumps to his feet. "Don't we need Kakashi-sensei to be here before we start our evaluation?"

"Yes, you do, but I'm not going to wait around all day for him."

Sakura scrambles to her feet after him, but Iruka notices the way Sasuke waits for Sakura to be a few feet ahead of him before getting out of his chair.

Iruka really doesn't want to know, but it's probably something he'll have to sort out before they leave. Sasuke settles into the seat closest to the door, trying very hard to hide his annoyance when Sakura sits next to him who is extremely displeased when Naruto eagerly plops himself down beside her.

This team is a fucking disaster. It's even worse because all three of them were originally on a team that was better suited for them. They have the potential to be an amazing combat team, but their inability to get along implies that they will never meet their true potential.

Iruka pauses, wonders if he's really about to give a team evaluation without the jounin assigned to it, but consoles himself with the knowledge that Asuma had given him the go ahead. Besides, if Kakashi had cared, he would have shown up on time. The man's not on a mission, Iruka knows that much, so he doesn't have an excuse for not being here. "I'd like to begin this by going over your class rankings."

"But, Iruka-sensei, we already know those." Sakura says, "Sasuke's first, I'm thirteenth, and Naruto's dead last." She gives Sasuke a shy smile and Naruto an annoyed scoff when she mentions their scores. Sasuke ignores her; Naruto wilts at her tone.

This team is a fucking mess.

"Ah, those are your official rankings in this class, Sakura, but they aren't very accurate. They don't account for things like illness or missed tests or students that choose to hide their ability."

"Someone hid their abilities?" Sasuke asks, eyes drilling into Iruka.

"Yes, several of your classmates." Shino is the only one who passed that did so. He's also the only one who managed to consistently keep his rank where he wanted it, which is probably because Iruka kept telling him how well he needed to do on graded exercises to maintain the fifteenth spot.

"So, what are our real rankings then?" Sakura asks, twirling a strand of her hair around her fingers. She's glancing at Sasuke from the corner of her eye and there's a tiny smirk on her lips. Iruka doesn't want to crush her self-image, but he also doesn't want her to die in the field. Honesty is the only way any of these genin are going to get better, which means Iruka is going to be brutally honest with them the entire way through.

"Sakura, you're ranked twentieth." Sakura's jaw drops, eyes wide open. To be fair, it's truly a testament to how intelligent she is that she's managed to place as high as she did. At the beginning of the term, when she was still friends with Ino, Sakura had been able to do all the physical conditioning and exercises with ease; now, she can barely handle the minimum requirements. The requirements had increased exponentially, not linearly, which means that unless Sakura had continued to push herself physically, as she had beforehand, she would never maintain the excellent results she had before.

"Sasuke," he continues, pretending not to notice the increasing intensity of the boy's stare, "you are ranked third in the class." If Iruka had it his way, he would have dropped Sasuke much further down the ranking, but he honestly can't justify it. Sasuke is an excellent shinobi who only has one or two real weaknesses. The problem is both of those weaknesses are debilitating and it's only Sasuke considerable skill levels that has kept him in the third place.

Sasuke glares at him, hands clenched into white-knuckled balls, "Who placed first?"

"I'm here to provide you with your evaluation, not to discuss other students." He raises a hand, stopping Sasuke's next comment before it can begin. "I will be posting the unofficial ranking after your evaluation; you may view them afterwards if you'd like." Sasuke nods at him once, hands still balled, and seems to struggle to calm himself down. "Naruto, you're ranked twenty-first in the class."

Naruto perks up, shocked, "I'm not last?"

"You're not last," Iruka assures him. Naruto would be ranked higher, but Iruka is absolutely positive he's heard the boy refer to chakra as "catchra". He's never called it such when speaking to Iruka, but any time Iruka's tries to quiz him on chakra, the little brat manages to squirm his way out of the discussion.

Another reason why Iruka really didn't want to graduate Naruto into the ninja forces. The boy really would be better off with one more year at the academy, especially if he actually went to the classes instead of skipping them. The difference between Naruto's understanding of class material and Sakura's physical abilities is great enough that Naruto would never be able to surpass her. Physical conditioning is more important for genin than theoretical knowledge, but not if that means sacrificing a basic understanding of something as fundamental as chakra.

"Hmm, this team seems a bit odd. Which one of these kids is the mould-breaker?" Kakashi asks.

Iruka holds back his flinch, unlike the fresh genin. Sakura and Naruto yelp, leaping to their feet, and whirling around to face their sensei. "You're late!"

"Am I?" Kakashi asks, sounding genuinely confused. "I could have sworn we were meeting at noon."

"It's two o'clock!" Sakura yells back.

Odd? It's Kakashi's fault this cluster fuck of a team exists. Iruka takes a deep calming breath and forces down the irate tirade that wants to rain down on Kakashi. It's fine. Everything is fine. He's just going to flag the next three mission reports Kakashi submits, forcing the man to redo them with more details each time.

Kakashi sighs, the sound truly mournful, "Well, I suppose if you're going to yell at me the entire time, I'll leave until you're feeling more excited to see me." Kakashi stands from his chair that he had apparently dragged behind the genin at some point, turning as if about to leave the room.

"Don't you dare, sensei!" Naruto screams, jumping between the door and Kakashi, as if he would be able to stop the jounin from leaving the room.

"But you don't seem to want me here." Kakashi pouts at them, a sadistic humour dripping from his words.

"Sensei," Sakura snarls, jaw clenched, "we are so ecstatic to see you here. Why don't you take a seat, so we can continue to enjoy your presence?"

"Well, if my cute little genin are so desperate to be around me," Kakashi is far too gleeful, Iruka is starting to pity the genin, and sits himself down in his chair, "I suppose I can stay awhile longer." He pulls a book out of his kunai pouch and buries his face between the pages.

Sakura looks angry enough to kill him. Naruto looks angry enough to kill him. Sasuke looks angry enough to kill him. In conclusion, the three genin are probably going to murder their sensei at some point.

That makes Iruka feel a little bit better.

Forcing away the delightful thoughts of revenge, Iruka calms down enough to answer. "Both Sakura and Naruto are mould-breakers." Sakura shouldn't have become a genin with her physical conditioning, but the girl is brilliant, which means her team needed to be tailored around that. Naruto also shouldn't have become a genin, but he'd proven his mettle four days ago and Iruka had given him his headband. Sakura's theoretical knowledge would improve Naruto's traps and Naruto's trap would supplement Sakura's physical conditioning, with Sasuke around for backup, crowd control, and supplementary skills.

It's frustrating how perfect this team seems on paper, but how unstable it is in reality.

"Hmm," Kakashi hums, flipping a page in his book. Iruka must assume he's paying attention. He has to assume Kakashi wouldn't have shown up here if he wasn't going to pay attention.

"Iruka-sensei," Sakura asks, struggling to tear her glaring eyes away from Kakashi, "what are mould-breakers?"

"Mould-breakers are students who need to be placed on a team based on their skillset, not their physical capabilities, which is how genin teams are normally composed." Naruto looks confused and Iruka can see the hint of a question in his eyes. "What that means is usually teams are composed by people who can do the same things, such as running at the same speed or lifting the same amount of weight."

The confusion in Naruto's eyes vanishes and Iruka takes that as a sign that he can move on. "Now, onto your evaluations. I'll begin alphabetically." Sakura looks deeply uncomfortable, eyes darting over to Sasuke, before dropping down to her lap.

This team is a fucking mess and Iruka will keep all three genin in this room until it gets cleaned up. It's a heavy burden and Iruka feels a wave of exhaustion at the thought of trying to fight with all three of them to make them better, but he doesn't have a choice. He won't let them out into the field without doing everything he can to guarantee their survival first.

"Sakura, my primary recommendation is that you exit the ninja program." It feels harsh to say this to her, especially since he must watch the light drain from her eyes, but this is something she needs to hear. Naruto opens his mouth and Iruka casts the auditory genjutsu on him before he can say anything, "Don't interrupt, Naruto. I'm trying to save her life."

"But—"

"You aren't taking your career seriously, Sakura. I cannot, in good conscience, send you out there when I know you aren't going to do your best."

"I am doing my best, Iruka-sensei! I take being a ninja very seriously."

"How many calories should genin your age intake a day?" he asks.

"Around three thousand," Sakura answers immediately, proving she learned something from the nutrition units Iruka had compiled. It's a good thing because they had the same lesson three times. Once as part of the standard academy curriculum, a second time as a revision session because Iruka had been worried that Naruto and the other orphans needed a more in-depth look on it without parents around to help them with meal plans, and a third time as a reminder when Iruka noticed Sakura and the other female civilian students were on a ridiculous diet.

"And how many have you had in the past two days?" She flushes and doesn't answer him. He doesn't need her to. He knows she's back on a diet, knows that she's under the impression that calories are the enemy, even though she's aware that she needs their energy to train effectively. "You know how many calories you should take for this profession but choose not to take them. How is that taking this job seriously?"

"But—"

"You only bother to maintain the minimum standard for physical conditioning, if that. You go out of your way to weaken yourself and you've willing destroyed a relationship that made you better."

"I didn't—"

"Sakura," Iruka cuts her off again. He won't let her get a word in. He won't give her a chance to justify the terrible decisions she's made. Especially because she knows better. Sakura is brilliant. Intellectually, she's at the top of her class, only beaten by Shikamaru who is genetically predisposed to intelligence. "In terms of your ninja career, Ino is one of the best things that has happened to you." Sakura bites her lips, fisting her red qipao, and Iruka can see tears starting to fill her eyes. "This feud you have going on with her needs to end and I have every intention of keeping you here until you understand and agree with me."

"But—" Her eyes are flicking over to Sasuke and Iruka needs to nip this in the bud before it gets anymore out of hand.

"Sakura, you cannot throw away a perfectly good friendship because you think Sasuke is cute." She flushes, eyes wide in horror, but Iruka soldiers on. "I'll let you in on a secret: Boys are stupid."

"Iruka-sensei!" Sakura gasps, the tiniest of smiles on her lips.

"I'm being serious, Sakura. Boys are stupid. This is the most important lesson I will ever impart on you. You're on a team with three other boys, two of them who are your age. You're going to realize very soon that boys are stupid and you don't want to have put up with them unless absolutely necessary. By the time you reach chunin, you're not going to be able to look at Sasuke or Naruto without thinking of them as annoying little brothers you can't get rid of."

Sakura hesitates, stuck on some concept, eyes darting between Sasuke and Naruto. She still has a slight look of adoration when she looks at Sasuke, though, and Iruka isn't about to let her leave the room under any romantic illusions.

"Sasuke, do you care if Sakura's hair is long?"

"No," he answers immediately.

"Do you care about what she wears?"

"No."

"Do you care about how she does her makeup?"

"No."

"If she were the best kunoichi in the class, would you care?"

"No."

With each question, Sasuke looks more and more vindicated and Sakura becomes more and more dejected. It's cruel in a way, but Sakura's wasting her potential because of Sasuke and she needs to hear this now, so she can turn herself around while she still has time. "Sakura, I know this is hard for you to hear, but you need to understand. What do you think would happen if I asked Ino these questions?"

She doesn't answer, biting her lip. She doesn't want to speak because she knows the answer as well as Iruka does.

"Sakura?" He's firm with her, but gentle. Sakura is a brilliant girl who has made terrible choices, but at the end of the day, those choices are a result of her being a little girl who does not yet fully grasp what is truly important in the world. He knows in five years or so, Sakura will laugh herself sick at the notion of picking a cute face over a friend. She's making a grave mistake, but she still deserves the compassion that comes from being a little girl with a silly crush and a romanticized view of romance.

She's been lonely. Ino has been lonely. They have both missed each other terribly but have been too stubborn to attempt a reconciliation. They're little girls. They're little girls playing at being grownups but lacking the necessary life experience to do so.

"Sakura," he tries again at her silence, "what would Ino answer?"

"Yes," she whispers very quietly, voice as wet as her eyes.

"Yes," he agrees with her. "She would say 'yes' because you are her best friend and she cares about you deeply. Just as you care for her deeply."

Sakura's lip trembles slightly, silent tears sliding down her face.

"Don't you miss her, Sakura? I know she misses you."

"Yes," she sniffles, very quietly, eyes dropping down to her lap.

"Then why haven't you tried reaching out to her?"

He knows why Ino hasn't reached out to Sakura. The girl is more patient, better at distracting herself from her loneliness. More importantly, there's been an underlying layer of hurt whenever Sakura and Ino interact.

And Ino gets vicious when she's hurt. Iruka doesn't think he'll ever forget the look on Sakura's face after Ino called her Billboard Brow that first time. He'll never forget the look on Ino's face after Sakura fled from the classroom with tears in her eyes either.

Iruka has spent the last half of the semester watching two girls hurt each other and themselves because they are too young to know how to reconcile their petty feud, which has grown into something that can no longer be considered petty. The injury between the two of them doesn't require amputation yet and Iruka's going to provide an antibiotic before it becomes infected.

"It's just," Sakura mumbles, "it's just that I wanted her to take me seriously." Iruka blinks, holds back the instinct to interrupt her because out of all the answers she could have given him, this is not one he would have considered in a million years. "Ino's so good at everything and it always feels like she's holding back or taking it easy on me because she knows I'm not as good as her. Sasuke doesn't like anyone, so I thought if I could get him to like me that maybe Ino would realize that I can keep up with her. She wouldn't have to treat me like a kid or slow down or…" She trails off here, biting her lip softly.

Iruka is a bit baffled by this. He knows Sakura has self-confidence issues. That's not surprising. Iruka can't think of a single one of his students in her class who doesn't have issues with confidence. He hadn't known, though, how deeply rooted those issues were. This fight between Ino and Sakura is because Sakura feels like Ino sees her as inferior; however, Iruka knows that's not true. Ino's always seen Sakura as her best friend.

This has nothing to do with Sasuke and very little to do with Ino. All this boils down to is Sakura, her insecurities, and her inability to healthily deal with them. Which means that all he really needs to do is teach her how to handle her insecurities and this will work itself out.

"Have you talked to Ino about this?"

Sakura blinks at him, head tilted slightly. "No, why would I—"

"If you feel like Ino's not taking you seriously, you have to talk to her. Maybe she doesn't realize it and needs you to point it out or perhaps this is all one big misunderstanding that can't be rectified until you mention it." It's definitely a misunderstanding. "Either way, you'll never know how Ino really feels until you speak to her."

Sakura blushes slightly, "But what if she doesn't listen?"

"Then you know that you tried." He can't offer her any more assurance than that, though he's sure that Ino will listen. He knows Ino wants to know what changed, why one day Sakura seemed to have decided that they weren't friends any longer. "When this meeting is over, I want you to stay behind for a couple of minutes. I'll send Ino here so you can hash things out."

Sakura sniffles, wiping at her wet eyes. "I'd like that."

"I'm sure she'll like it too." He takes a second to gather his thoughts. It's time to move onto his next pressing concern. "Moving on, we have a couple more things to discuss before I'm willing to approve you for field work."

Sakura nods her head, sitting up straight, a comforting fire in her eyes. "And what's that, Iruka-sensei?"

"Sasuke."

Sakura flushes, aborting her instinctive attempt to look at the boy. "Iruka-sensei!"

She might not want to talk about this, especially with Sasuke sitting beside her, but it has to be discussed now. At the beginning of the formation of their team, not years down the line after it's negatively affected their team. Sakura's crush on Sasuke, Naruto's crush on Sakura, Sasuke's lack of respect for his teammates, all these things need to be addressed now, before it's too late.

He pauses, thinks about how to phrase the next bit, and decides to just wing it. "I know you probably think Sasuke has a pretty face," Sakura flushes bright red and Iruka ignores it, "and I know you admire his skill, but the truth is that if Sasuke walked around with a bag over his head, you would hit him harder and more frequently than you hit Naruto."

Because Haruno Sakura has truly horrifying temper and her first reaction to things that make her angry is to punch it. She would be terrifying if she had the physical strength to backup her temper.

"Iruka-sensei, I would never—"

"You will. I give it three months tops of being around Sasuke before you realize that he's really not all that great and start smacking him whenever he gets too annoying."

Sakura is ready to protest, but Kakashi speaks up before she can. "Mah, mah, you really should give up on him, Sakura. Little Sasuke is only interested in Naruto; he even made sure to save his first kiss for him."

Iruka hides his confusion at that statement. What does that even mean? Sakura sputters, cheeks turning red, and Sasuke jumps to his feet, spinning around to face Kakashi, fingers flying through a jutsu. "Fire Style: Grand Fireball Jutsu!"

Iruka watches, baffled, as Sasuke sets Kakashi on fire. "Notice, Sakura, that he didn't deny it." Kakashi voice comes from right beside Iruka's ear and it takes every bit of his willpower not to jump out of his seat and stab the man.

Sasuke whirls back around, cheeks red with a mixture of rage and embarrassment, and Sakura clasps her hands over her mouth. Sasuke's next course of action is interrupted by Naruto who leaps out of his chair and shrieks, finger pointed at Sasuke. "Eh! You pervert! You kissed me on purpose, didn't you?"

"I did not! You kissed me!" Sasuke snaps back at him.

What? They actually kissed? When and why? Iruka wants to know, but at the same time, he's pretty sure he really doesn't want to know.

"How do you know about that?" Sakura demands, eyes narrowed. "You didn't arrive until several hours afterwards."

Kakashi casually saunters back to his chair, which has somehow managed to survive Sasuke's fireball. Iruka has no idea how Kakashi managed that. "Well, you see, a little doggy told me."

"Liar!"

Iruka assumes Kakashi is referring to one of his dog summons, but that just begs the question as to why he had his dog summons spying on his genin. Iruka has questions. He has many questions, but he's not sure he really wants the answer to them.

"Naruto," he says, gently because Naruto has been doing a very good job keeping his mouth shut despite squirming in his seat and looking ready to burst, "please sit back down. Sasuke," he continues, firmly because he really shouldn't have to say this to anyone, "please don't set the furniture on fire." He raises an eyebrow at Sakura who looks very embarrassed to be sitting between her teammates. "Girls mature faster than boys. It's an unavoidable fact that both of your teammates are going to do varying levels of stupid things that annoy you. You can't ignore Sasuke's faults just because he has a pretty face and you can't be overly harsh with Naruto just because he's obnoxious."

"I'm not obnoxious!" Naruto protests immediately. "I took a shower this morning!"

Iruka raises an eyebrow at Naruto, writes both noxious and obnoxious on a paper, pulls out a dictionary from his desk drawer—kept specifically for this purpose—and skims through the definitions on obnoxious, before making note of the number for the one he just used on the sheet of paper. He closes the dictionary and hands it, the pen, and the paper over to Naruto who immediately groans, looks at the spelling for the words and slowly begins flipping through the dictionary to find it.

Sakura glances at Naruto, the smallest flicker of amusement on her lips, before she turns back to him. "You need to be objective when dealing with your teammates," Iruka informs her. "How you deal with one teammate is how you should deal with the other one. This team is structured with the idea that you'll keep both of your teammates from flying off the handle." Sasuke scoffs quietly from his seat, but Iruka ignores him and continues. "If you're not objective about it than resentment will form and your team will fall apart around you. If you can't handle that than you need to tell me now. There are other positions you can fill outside of the field that you would do very well in. The Information Department, Cryptology Department, or even the Medical Unit would greatly benefit from you joining them."

"I really want to work in the field," she says, a stubborn tilt to her chin when she looks him in the eye.

"Can you keep your teammates in line?"

She nods once, jaw clenched, and the fire from earlier burning strongly in her eyes. "Easily."

"Good. You're on this team because you display high levels of rationality and objectivity. Both of your teammates fall on the other end of the spectrum and are liable to make decisions solely based on their emotional state—"

"I am not emotion—" Sasuke's sharp retort is cut off when Sakura punches him in the head.

Iruka will never forget the look on either of their faces. Sakura who looks mortified at her own actions or Sasuke who is completely flabbergasted by the blow. There's a brief pause, Sakura flushes bright red, eyes dropping down to her lap, before she clears her throat. "Iruka-sensei isn't done talking."

Naruto bursts into laughter and Iruka lets him, taking the paper he'd given Naruto to check what progress he'd made. _Sasuke was super obnoxious when he said me and Sakura would slow him down._ Iruka crosses out 'me and Sakura' and replaces it with 'Sakura and I'. _The smoke bombs from my Iki-Iki prank had a super noxious smell._ He corrects 'smell' to 'scent', adds check marks beside both sentences, and hands the paper back to Naruto.

"No," Iruka says, making no attempt to hide his sheer pride, "I'm not done talking."

"Hmm, the form on that punch was rather good," Kakashi muses, eyes still firmly on his book, "but you overextended. Don't worry, though. I'm sure Baby Sasuke will give you plenty of opportunities to practice."

"I'm not a baby!" Sasuke snapped at him, turning to face Kakashi.

Iruka watches as Sakura takes a deep breath, before grabbing Sasuke by the collar of the shirt and jerking him back around to face Iruka. "Ignore him, he's just trying to rile you up." She gives Kakashi an annoyed glare over her shoulder. "I'm not punching my teammates for your amusement." With that she faces forward, hands clenching her qipao and very obviously not looking at Sasuke.

"As I was saying, your teammates are prone to emotional decision-making, which means it's your job to keep them grounded in logic."

Sakura nods once more, brows furrowing slightly in concentration. Iruka has no idea what she's thinking about, but he gives her a moment to parse it through. There's a flash of realization across her face, the smallest of glances sent Sasuke's way, and she seems to settle into herself, determination etching every line of her being. "I can do this, Iruka-sensei."

"Then let's being your evaluation." Sakura nods her head, squaring her shoulders, but tightening her grip on the fabric in her hands. "Sakura, you are objective, analytical, and curious. Three important traits for an intelligent mind. You are a well of knowledge and never stop trying to learn more. Your mind is what set you apart from the other civilian students. Your greatest strength is your memory. Out of all your classmates, you have the best memory and you are the only one who consistently catches the small details that most people ignore."

There were tests for this ability. Let the genin into a room for a minute, take them out, rearrange the room, and let them back in to return it to its original state. Sakura had outscored Shino and Shikamaru who had done his best with the knowledge that for every detail he missed, he would have to run three laps around the school. Her recreation had been near perfect and Iruka can only imagine how well she would have done in a bigger room with more time to examine her surroundings.

"Your taijutsu is below average, your ninjutsu and genjutsu are average. The primary reason your taijutsu is below average, though, is because you lack the physical conditioning to use it effectively, not because of your form or understanding of it. Improve that and your taijutsu will improve considerably. Quite frankly, you have the potential to excel at taijutsu, but until your body gets to where it needs to be, you'll never reach that potential."

Sakura raises her hand, a small frown of confusion on her lips, "But, Iruka-sensei, aren't girls supposed to specialize in genjutsu? I thought girls were the genjutsu specialist and boys covered taijutsu."

Iruka blinks. It takes a second for him to remember that Sakura comes from a civilian family, and as such, was probably taught about shinobi specialities primarily from the perspective of her civilian parents. And civilians have very strict gender roles in comparison to shinobi.

"Girls specialize in whatever they're good at and the same goes for boys. No shinobi who's been in the field would ever tell you to ignore honing a skill just because of your sex. You have the potential to be very good at taijutsu, so you should practice until you are very good."

Sakura hesitates, eyes flicking over to Sasuke and Naruto, before she sighs, takes a breath to brace herself, and speaks. "My mom says it's not very ladylike to be good at taijutsu and that's what the boys are for and that if I want to get a good husband when I'm older than I need to keep my taijutsu usage to the bare minimum."

It's a loaded statement. It makes Iruka deeply regret not stepping in when Ino and Sakura's relationship first began to deteriorate. Exposure to a shinobi family would have prevented that sort of mindset from taking root into Sakura. She's still a child, she has no reason to doubt the words of her mother, and without Ino's influence, she doesn't really have another source of information to turn to.

"Sakura, your mother isn't a shinobi," he says carefully, gauging Sakura's reaction to his words, "which means that she has different values than shinobi. For instance, do you remember Kurenai-sensei?"

"Team 8's leader, right?"

"Yes, she's a jounin, which means she is very proficient in taijutsu. Would you say she isn't ladylike?" Sakura shakes her head furiously and Iruka isn't really surprised by her reaction. "And do you really want Naruto and Sasuke to fight your battles?" Sakura blushes, eyes slowly drifting over to Sasuke, and Iruka can feel himself losing her to a crush he can't reasonably expect for her to be over in the span of twenty minutes. "Or would you rather stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them, able to carry your own weight." He's not expecting Sakura to react to his words the way she does. Eyes sharpening into focus, back straightening, and a desperate aura to almost radiate from her being. He's not expecting her to react like that, but he's very glad she does. "If you're going to keep up with them, then you'll need to work on every aspect of yourself that you can, including taijutsu."

"Yes, sensei."

"As for finding a husband, you only have a few years under Kakashi's guidance. If you can't make it to chunin by then, you'll be removed from his care and added to the Genin Corps." Sakura winces at the thought, not that Iruka can blame her. The Genin Corps is primarily made up of ninja with a civilian background, it's rather expected of her to wash up there while her two teammates move on to chunin. "Finding a husband can wait until you're promoted up the ranks, don't you think?"

"Yes, Iruka-sensei."

"Alright then. Your chakra reserves are below average and your chakra control is phenomenal." Sakura blinks, startled, and Iruka gives her a proud smile. "Your control is better than many chunin, including some of the teachers here. Excellent control like that gives you the option to specialize in genjutsu, ninjutsu, or medical jutsu. If you can get your physical conditioning up to standard, you'll also have the option for a taijutsu specialty."

"How can I specialize in ninjutsu with below average reserves?"

"It's a common misconception that you need large reserves for a ninjutsu specialty. Realistically, control is far more important. Someone with large reserves and terrible control should avoid ninjutsu because they'll waste chakra. Someone with the opposite problem, small reserves and excellent control, can get more potent jutsu off without wasting chakra, which is preferable in the long run."

It's a very big misconception.

Usually it's not until chunin are aiming to become jounin that they realize they should have been focused on refining their control instead of increasing their reserves. With good control, you can perform many feats. With large reserves, you're limited to the chakra you can control. The misconception forms from one misunderstanding: If you have bad chakra control and use a jutsu, you end up pouring excess chakra into the jutsu. In reality, if you have bad chakra control and use a jutsu, the excess chakra is wasted, dissipating into the surroundings.

"Chakra control is the most important skill you will ever have at your disposal. It is something you should train whenever you get the chance. If you're given the choice between improving your reserves and your control, at this point in your careers, you should pick to work on your control."

"Eh? Why is that, Iruka-sensei? Isn't it better to have more chakra than to worry about the fiddly stuff?" Naruto asks, scratching the back of his head and squinting at the ceiling.

Sasuke and Sakura show similar confusion and Iruka pauses to think about how to explain this concept. He reaches into his desk and pulls out ten paperclips, while Sakura and Sasuke won't need a visual for his following explanation, he's sure Naruto will appreciate it. "Let's say you're by yourself and need to hide from the enemy until the rest of your team finds you. For simplicity sake, we'll say the only jutsu you can use is the Clone Jutsu." He lays the paperclips in a line on his desk. "Each of these paperclips represents one unit of chakra and it takes three units of chakra to use the clone jutsu. Are you with me so far?"

Sakura and Sasuke nod, but Naruto squints at the paperclips. Before Iruka can say a word, Sakura nudges Naruto gently, a stubborn jut to her chin. "Every time you want to use the Clone Jutsu, you have to give away three paperclips. If you don't have three paperclips, you can't use the jutsu. If you give away the wrong amount of paperclips, you can't use the jutsu. So, when we talk about chakra reserves, we mean about how many paperclips you own; when we're talking about chakra control, we mean how many paperclips you give away."

"Oh!" Naruto bounces in his seat. "That makes a lot of sense. Why didn't you just say that?"

"He did," Sasuke interjects.

"Nu-uh! He said—"

"Boys," Sakura snaps, "focus." It takes a second, but Iruka watches the sheer annoyance on her face dissolve into shock. She glances at Sasuke and then Naruto before shaking her head slightly.

"Anyways," Iruka sends another proud smile Sakura's way and watches as she blushes slightly under his attention, "Sakura, when you gather chakra for the Clone Jutsu, your control is precise enough that you gather exactly three units of chakra." He separate three paperclips from the pile and leaves them off to the side. "And when you convert the chakra into a jutsu, you convert all of the chakra you've gathered without wasting a drop." He picks up the three paperclips and holds them in his hand. "You could get off three jutsu and would still have a single unit of chakra leftover for emergencies." He adds the paperclips back to the original pile. "Sasuke, on the other hand, would get off two jutsu."

Sasuke tenses, gripping his knees tightly. "I could get off more than her."

"Not in this situation. When it comes to gathering up chakra, your control leads to you summoning up four units of chakra." He separates four paperclips. "However, your control is at its best when you convert that chakra into a jutsu, so you only pour three units of chakra into it." Iruka picks up three paperclips. "In the end, a single unit of chakra is wasted every time you try to use the Clone Jutsu and is the reason why you can only get two off where Sakura can get three. You'll have two jutsu in this situation and two additional units of chakra afterwards." Sasuke is clenching his jaw and Iruka wants to say something to comfort him, but there isn't any sort of consolation he can think to offer him.

"What about me?" Naruto asks, crossing his arms and pouting.

"You also get two jutsu out of it, Naruto." He lines all ten paperclips up again. "However, you're in the opposite situation of Sakura. Large reserves and poor control, which means this demonstration will be the best explanation as to why we generally encourage people with large reserves and poor control to avoid ninjutsu."

"Eh?" Naruto looks mildly devastated at his words. "I can totally use ninjutsu. I even get two just like the bastard."

"You'll understand in a moment, Naruto. When you try to give me three paperclips to use the Clone Jutsu, you accidentally grab five of them." He splits the line of paper clips in half. "And when you convert chakra into a jutsu, you fumble with your paperclips and only hand over one instead of three." He picks up a single paperclip and offers it to Naruto. "The remaining four paperclips you gathered end up wasted." He picks up a paperclip from the second group of paperclips and hands that one to Naruto, as well. "And this is why chakra control is so important. You'll get two jutsu off, Naruto, but they'll be weaker and cost you most of your chakra to pull off."

He's harping, but he's been nagging Naruto about this for a long time. The boy has deemed every class that focuses on chakra control as a wash and skipped most of them, which has resulted in truly subpar chakra control. It would be impressive it wasn't so dangerous. Iruka couldn't track Naruto down every time he skipped class nor could he make the boy stay for a lesson after he'd dropped him off in a class that he wasn't instructing. He'd started last year off trying to do just that, but it wasn't fair to the other students for Iruka to be spending so much time and effort on someone else at the cost of their education, so he'd been forced to stop. He's spent the last two years dropping Naruto off at school in the morning and not knowing what the boy was up to until he was supposed to be in his class. Naruto had gotten very good at making sure he was at school for Iruka's class, but there were times when his shenanigans had caused him to lose time and forced Iruka to retrieve him.

"Genin typically have small reserves, so they should focus on chakra control. Once you hit chunin that's when you need to start worrying about reserves because your reserves will begin to prevent you from learning the larger more draining jutsu out there and you'll need those once you no longer have Kakashi around to do the heavy lifting on your harder missions."

"I waste that much chakra?" Naruto asks, jaw dropped.

"You do. That's why I always tell you to practise your control."

"That explains a lot, though." Sakura murmurs. Naruto cocks his head at her and Sasuke tilts his head slightly to watch her. It takes an encouraging nod of Iruka's head when she blushes under the weight of Sasuke's stare, but she continues speaking. "You always gathered a lot of chakra for the Clone Jutsu, but they still came out really pale and crumpled on the floor."

And there's her analytical mind at work. The paleness of Naruto's clones is the result of a lack of chakra. Anyone who studied one of Naruto's clones for more than a second would notice that they were transparent in some places and come to the same conclusion as Sakura. The fact that they were crumpled on the floor, on the other hand, is for a much more interesting reason.

"But I gathered so much chakra for them!" Naruto protests.

"It doesn't matter how much chakra you gather if you don't convert it into a jutsu," Sasuke sneers.

"Exactly." Iruka agrees. "You gather too much chakra and then you only convert a fraction of how much you need."

Sakura blinks, eyeing Naruto suspiciously. "Iruka-sensei, genjutsu is the most finicky of the ninja arts, which is why chakra control is essential for anyone who specializes in it, right?"

"It is." Iruka chuckles at the way Naruto glances at them in confusion, leaning farther away from them the longer Sakura stares at him.

"So, shouldn't Naruto's attempts fail completely if he doesn't put enough chakra into them?"

"They should."

Sakura glances at him with wide eyes before turning back to Naruto. "Use the Clone Jutsu."

"Eh? But that's my worst jutsu!"

"Now!"

He could stop this. Iruka could put a stop to this entire irrelevant detour for their evaluation if he wanted to, but he makes the choice not to. This is going to come up during Naruto's evaluation, so he won't let them dawdle on it for too long, but he will let Sakura explore this. It's important that they show interest in each other's skills and abilities and this is probably the least hostile encounter Sakura and Naruto have ever had.

Naruto uses the Clone Jutsu, gathering even more chakra than he normally does in his attempt. As usual it comes out crumpled on the ground beside his feet, too pale to be mistaken for Naruto, but still better than any other attempt he's ever made.

Sakura hops out of her chair and walks around Naruto to examine it. "Definitely not enough chakra in it." She murmurs, crouching on the floor. "But it looks better than normal."

"This one has more chakra than they usually do." Iruka explains.

"Something is still weird about this, though." Sakura mumbles and Iruka can see the one crucial detail plaguing Sakura's mind.

"Very weird," Kakashi agrees. "It's not really something anyone should expect from someone with no chakra control." He's looking up from his book, seemingly more amused by this turn of events than anything else.

Sakura glances over at Kakashi suspiciously, but the man has already turned back to his book.

"I do to have chakra control! This jutsu's stupid! Even though I used more chakra the stupid thing still ended up on the ground like this!"

The light in Sakura's eyes brightens and she gasps, looking at Naruto stunned before inspecting his clone once more. After a second, he watches as Sakura summons chakra, far less than she would need for the Clone Jutsu.

When she finishes her jutsu, Iruka watches amused as Sakura stares at her three perfect clones, all imitating her stance and expression perfectly. "And that is why if you have good chakra control, you still have the option for a specialty in ninjutsu," he chuckles.

Sasuke finally stops pretending to ignore them and turns to eye the clones Sakura just made. "Why? She only made three of them." He's derisive, but Iruka can sense the genuine confusion beneath the arrogance.

"She was attempting to make five clones without enough chakra, but her control is precise enough that she compensated for the lack of chakra by making three clones instead," Iruka explains as Sakura ends the jutsu and tries again. "Good chakra control means you can control the scale of your jutsu. You can make the big one bigger and the small ones smaller. So, if you only have a fraction of the chakra you started a fight with, you can still get some of the more chakra intensive jutsu off at a fraction of the cost, though they won't be as effective as they would be if you used the regular amount of chakra they demanded."

It takes Sakura seven tries, but she does eventually manage to get the jutsu wrong and replicate Naruto's attempt. Her five translucent clones are all kneeling around the room wearing the same triumphant expression. It takes a second, but Sakura looks at her clones, each of them mimicking her every move, and she ends the jutsu. "I knew it! Naruto is—"

"Last alphabetically." Iruka interrupts her. "I'll address this later. But we're talking about you right now." Sakura glares at him for a second and Iruka honestly expects her to start yelling at him. She wrestles with her temper for a second before sitting back in her seat, while Sasuke turns away from Naruto, sparing the blond his suspicious glare. "Now, your greatest weakness, excluding your physical conditioning, is your temper. It is both spectacular and inconvenient. To date, you've failed three class exercises because you lost your patience with your teammates and blew your cover. There's a time and a place for losing control and the field is neither. I've arranged for you to take acting lessons through the Seduction Corps with Hinata and Ino to work on reigning in that temper of yours. The first lesson is tomorrow at 19:00."

That's not even a little true. He only obtained permission and lessons for Ino and Hinata, but he doesn't have much of a choice but to change his plans. Sakura's main issue is her own insecurity and the first step in combatting that will be a strong support network. If she has people she can talk to, she can work on her problems and receive encouragement and reassurance from her peers, which will be much more effective than words from a teacher. Thankfully, the Seduction Corps is a part of the Information Department and, as a shinobi, Iruka has no qualms about getting permission from Ibiki-sensei and skipping the normal line of command to get Sakura accepted into tomorrow's lessons alongside her peers.

Hinata, Sakura, and Ino are the only girls from their class who graduated. It makes sense for the three of them to bond together and form a lasting friendship. However, the odds of that happening without something drastic happening is slim to none. Generally, people form close bonds with the people they frequently run missions with. Genin don't begin to truly mingle until they are no longer learning from their jounin-sensei. Whether that's because they've been promoted to chunin or they've been reassigned to the Genin Corps is irrelevant. In the end, having two jounin on a D or C rank mission is preposterous and is never done, which means that it could be years before the girls begin to spend time together. Iruka's just starting the process off a little early.

"Get that temper of yours under control, improve your body, and stay objective. Do those things, Sakura, and you'll make an excellent kunoichi. Afterall, you have all the makings to be a spectacular assassin."


	4. Sasuke

"An assassin?" Sakura breathes, eyes wide with wonder. "I could be an assassin?"

"You could. You would make an excellent assassin," Iruka smiles. "You could barrage your enemies with poisons and genjutsu, wait until they're exhausted and confused, unsure if they're under the effects of a poison or an illusion. And while they're stumbling around, weak and out of chakra, you could slip behind them and slit their throat." Sakura looks intrigued and excited at the prospect and Iruka isn't sure what about that has her so ecstatic. "You're capable of slipping into a room and exiting while leaving little evidence of your presence. With some training, I have no doubt, you could get in, kill your target, and get back out without a trace."

"Eh? Sakura can be an assassin? That's so badass!" Naruto cheers, grinning at Sakura bright enough that even Sasuke looks slightly less grumpy.

"It is, indeed," Iruka smiles. Sakura had ended up on this team for a couple of reasons, but one of the reasons Iruka can't tell her is because she has the potential to become an excellent poster child for civilian shinobi, which would help smooth the resentment between civilian and clan relationships in the education department.

There has always been a bit of a bias when creating genin teams. The best students get the best jounin and, quite frankly, civilian students are usually nowhere near as good as their clan counterparts. As a result, civilian students typically end up grouped together in formless teams and fail their jounin test while the elite of the clan students pass with more capable jounin.

Traditionally, there is no way Sakura would ever be assigned to a jounin of Kakashi's calibre. Having Sakura on this team is one way for the Academy to continue to deny its favouritism for clan kids. It hadn't been a conscious choice on Iruka's part, more like a happy incident someone had noticed and promptly refused to allow Iruka to change for a team that was actually capable of functioning.

He hands Sakura's file to her, watching as she opens it and her eyes skim over it with the speed of a chunin reading a mission brief. "I've attached a four-month training schedule to your file. If you follow it, you should catch up to the minimum physical fitness for genin."

"Thanks, Iruka-sensei!" she chirps, "I'll be sure to stick to it."

Iruka smiles at her. There's no way of knowing if she will. There's no way of knowing how much any of what he's said is getting through to her. Sakura, more than any of his other students, tests well. She's capable of adhering to the standards of any test, meeting every single requirement with barely any effort. Earlier, Iruka told her that he needs her to be objective and focused on her training. He told her to treat her teammates the same.

So, that's what she's doing.

Iruka knows Sakura well enough to know that right now she's following his words to the letter, but not to the spirit. He won't know how much she's taken to heart until later, when she's left his classroom behind and is no longer trying to convince him that she can handle being a field ninja.

"Now, on to the next member of this squad, Sasuke." Iruka feels a migraine form at the thought of dealing with the Uchiha, though he keeps his pleasant smile firmly attached to his face.

Is it too late to be a field agent instead of an academy teacher?

Sasuke has a slew of issues, the list pages long, and while he has a good reason for it that doesn't change the fact that it prevents him from properly functioning in the field. "Sasuke," Iruka says calmly, pretending his head isn't pounding to the thrum of war drums at the thought of going through this evaluation, "my primary recommendation is that you exit the ninja program."

Sasuke who'd looked confident and determined pauses for a moment, his emotions slowly fizzling out. Then the anger comes. "What? Why would I need to—"

"Because you need therapy." Iruka answers before the boy can finish. Sasuke's mouth snaps shut at Iruka's words. They've had this conversation before. They had this conversation at the beginning of the year when Iruka realized that despite Sasuke's psych evaluation reporting him as stable, the boy struggles to function normally.

It's suspicious.

It's true that children fall through the cracks, especially after the Kyuubi attack when so many children became orphans, but Sasuke shouldn't have. There is no possible way for the last member of a Founding Clan, the last member of a powerful bloodline, to fall through the cracks the way Sasuke appears to have. Iruka followed the paper trail to the best of his ability and all signs indicate that Sasuke received the proper aid to deal with his trauma, but his behaviour indicates otherwise.

Iruka doesn't have the clearance necessary to find out who's either been modifying Sasuke's psych evaluation or failing to do it correctly. All he could do was report it to the Hokage who had immediately approved Iruka's recommendation to make a year of therapy a requirement for Sasuke to graduate. Everything had been fine, until Sasuke had entered class one day with a stack of forms that boiled down to an exemption from therapy.

It's complicated. If Sasuke weren't the Clan Head then they wouldn't have any issue forcing him into therapy, but his status does offer him a little protection. None of the other Clan Heads were willing to veto Sasuke's decision or modify current laws to cancel his exemption because it would set a dangerous precedent.

Iruka will never forget the Hokage's reaction when Iruka informed him about the documentation Sasuke had provided. His killing intent had leaked out for less than a fraction of a second. That fraction of a second had been one of the most terrifying moments of Iruka's life.

The Hokage hadn't been so out of control that his killing intent had properly manifested itself with a target or direction; instead, it had lingered in the air, pressing down on Iruka hard enough he'd contemplated suicide.

He hadn't been the only one. The Hokage's killing intent had affected everyone within two kilometres of the Hokage's Tower.

Sasuke is not okay. It's very clear that someone wants to prevent him from recovering from his trauma and Iruka suspects that the Hokage knows who it is. It really is just a matter of time until the Hokage deals with them because whatever they're up to, the Hokage does not approve.

Sasuke grits his teeth and glares at Iruka. "I do not need—"

"Yes, you do." Iruka interrupts him. "No one expects you to get over what happened to you, but we do expect you to move passed it. We expect you to be able to function despite your tragedy."

"I do function—"

"Sasuke," Iruka says, gently and unable to hide the sympathy, no, the pity he feels for the boy in front of him. "You can't even think critically about that night."

Sasuke bristles. Iruka isn't sure if it's a reaction to his words or his pity. Either way, he gets a visceral reaction. "What's there to think about? They're dead. That man killed every single member of my clan." He doesn't cry. Sasuke doesn't shed a single tear despite his outburst. His voice cracks when he speaks of Itachi, whether that's because of his distress or puberty, is unclear.

In the end, it doesn't matter why Sasuke's voice cracks.

What matters is that it's been four years and Sasuke still can't say Itachi's name. If he'd undergone therapy, he would be better off. Not better. You don't go through what Sasuke did and recover from it. Iruka lost his parents twelve years ago and he's still not over it. He's better off, but not better.

Sasuke has never spoken about the massacre with anyone and Iruka's sure that he avoids thinking about it as much as possible. And it's understandable, but it's not healthy. Sasuke is repressing his trauma, but to be a ninja, you must be able to cope.

You don't need to cope well. Shinobi as a rule, tend to be all kinds of crazy. The more powerful they are, the worst they tend to be. Any coping method is better than repression. Repression is messy and unreliable, liable to surface at the worst possible time.

"And how did he do that?" Iruka doesn't ask to be cruel, he asks because Sasuke is basing his life ambition off a situation from which he's never gotten all of the facts. "Because as someone who was on Itachi's genin team, I can say with absolute certainty he was not good enough to kill every Uchiha in a single night without alerting anyone."

Sasuke, hands balled into fists, blinks. His month hangs open for a second before it snaps shut. He hesitates, just for one second, but that's long enough for Iruka to see the ghost of a scared child in his expression: lost and confused and alone. "You were on his team?"

Iruka nods. "I was." It's not something people tend to remember when they think of Iruka's genin team. When people think of Team Ibiki, or Team Red Flag as Anko had dubbed them, they think of the Uchiha Genius or Orochimaru's potential spy. No one really recalls the last genin that had been on the team as anything other than a placeholder.

Which is a little ridiculous because the Hokage had personally put that team together. Ibiki-sensei had been assigned to make sure Anko hadn't been a spy or a sleeper agent, to watch Itachi for signs that he wouldn't break under the pressures of being such young ninja, to help Iruka cope with deaths of his parents because he'd still been a mess at that point.

"Your genin team will become your family," Iruka declares, ignoring the way Naruto inhales sharply at his words. "Whether you like it or not, by the time you reach chunin, you're going to know your teammates better than you know yourself. There's a reason I told Sakura that she won't be able to look at you without thinking about an annoying little brother she can't get rid of." Iruka pauses here, unable to stop the fond smile that slips on his lips. "That's how I thought about Itachi."

Sasuke's eyes widen just a touch and Iruka lets the thought settle in the air. To Sasuke, Itachi has been a loving older brother or a ruthless murderer. There was no in between, no shades of grey, for his polarizing perception of Itachi. No deeper understanding than what could be found on the surface.

A ninja must be able to look beyond appearances and decipher hidden meanings. If Sasuke can't analyse his own traumatic experiences, then how can Iruka be sure he'll examine the other dangerous situations he'll encounter.

"As his ANBU captain, I have to agree." Kakashi says, casually turning a page of his filth. "Itachi was good, but not good enough to slaughter the entirety of the Uchiha Clan in a single night."

Sasuke inhales sharply, glancing back at Kakashi. "You were what?"

"Itachi's captain. I was the one who got him promoted." Kakashi flipped another page, not even deigning to look up at Sasuke. "And I couldn't have done that if I hadn't known exactly what he was capable of."

Sasuke's hands are clenched into fists, knuckles white, and Iruka wants to stop and comfort him; instead, he presses on. Sasuke will never begin moving past his trauma until he's forced to confront it. "It's impossible for Itachi to have killed the Uchiha Clan singlehandedly."

"Impossible? How can it be impossible for him to have done it when everyone's dead?"

"Because it doesn't make any sense." There's a brief silence at those words. Iruka may have been thinking those exact words, but he hadn't been the one to say them.

Naruto flushes slightly at all the attention everyone gives him.

"It doesn't make any sense?" Sasuke murmurs, a seething rage clinging to his every word.

Naruto must sense it because he leans away from Sasuke, almost toppling out of his chair. "Not really. I mean, when you think about it there's no way he could kill that many people without attracting some attention. I mean, Grandpa Hokage is constantly sending ninja out to patrol the village, at least one of them should have noticed a buncha people dying. And then if they didn't, I think some of the other clans have ways of noticing when something bad's happening. Like this one time, Kiba and I got separated during a prank, but he managed to find me because he said he could smell the ramen I'd spilt on my shirt a couple o' days ago and I think if he could do that than any of the grownups in his family could notice blood or something if a lot of people got hurt. And since Iruka said no one caught him, when a lot of people should have caught him, it just doesn't make any sense."

Sasuke is pale, staring at Naruto with a muted look of horror, and there's another beat of silence before Sakura speaks. "Why were all of the Uchiha at the compound?"

Sasuke flinches, coming back to himself, and turns away from Naruto to glare at her. "Why were they at their homes?"

Sakura barely notices the look, brow furrowed, deep in thought. "The Uchiha were a shinobi clan and they ran the Military Police. Some of them should have been out of the village on missions and others should have been patrolling the village." Sakura begins tapping her knee, a bad habit Kakashi will have to train out of her. "Was there some sort of clan meeting? No. Sasuke was the son of the Clan Head, there's no way he'd be allowed to miss a meeting that the other children had to attend."

She's mostly muttering to herself, but Iruka can see the affect her words are having on Sasuke, the dawning realization that the senseless massacre may not have been as senseless as it seemed. "It's generally accepted by most chunin and jounin that the Uchiha Massacre did not happen as publicized for two reasons." Iruka focuses on Sasuke, trying his best to project a sense of calm because the boy looks seconds away from having a well-deserved breakdown. "First, not everything related to the massacre has been sealed. Normally, an incident of this magnitude would be completely sealed, the files only accessible to the Hokage, but for some reason, Lord Hokage hasn't done that this time around. Autopsy reports and patrol routes from that day are all available to anyone who has clearance for them, which would be chunin and above. The patrol routes are the most alarming; they should be locked up to prevent spies from discovering a breach in our security. But, they're not. A lot of the information needed to piece together the events of that day have been left available for anyone who cares to investigate the matter."

Iruka pauses here, wonders if Sasuke is catching what Iruka's saying. If he's deciphered the hidden meaning in his words. There's only one person in this village who should be determined to investigate the Uchiha Massacre and, for whatever reason, the Hokage hasn't made it overly difficult for them to do so.

"What's the other reason?" Sasuke prompts, voice trembling slightly. He's paler than he was a second ago and Iruka wonders if he should stop here, if Sasuke's about to go into shock, but then he decides to go forward.

"You're alive."

Sasuke blinks. "What? What does that have to do with—"

"Itachi loves you." Iruka states. "You are his favourite person in the world. It was so bad our other teammate used to tease him about having a brother complex." Anko had been a complete unrepentant menace with that accusation, which only got worse when Itachi refused to deny it, stubbornly insisting that Sasuke was too cute not to adore. To this day, Iruka and Ibiki-sensei still get migraines whenever they think about Sasuke accomplishing anything because it forces them to remember Itachi's gushing praise and Anko's gleeful needling. "If the official story is that Itachi snapped, then the only way it would be believable would be if you had died when you ran into him. Instead, you're the only survivor. And more importantly, you were tortured just enough to have no permanent damage, but you can no longer remember anything that you saw that night, effectively protecting you from anyone who wants the secrets of that night to stay hidden. You can't tell what you don't know and attacking you for what you don't remember is a pointless risk."

"Are you trying to tell me that—that—that Itachi is innocent! That someone else—that—that—" Sasuke cuts himself off, shaking enough that Iruka is genuinely concerned that he's gone too far. Said too much too soon.

"No. I'm not saying that." Because he can't say that. The Uchiha council members had definitely been executed by Itachi. There's no changing or hiding that fact. But that was only twenty people. The remaining eighty or so had not been Itachi's work and the autopsies proved that fact. "What I'm saying is that the Uchiha Massacre is not a clear-cut situation. No one besides Itachi and any accomplices he had that night knows exactly what happened."

Iruka sighs, wishing there was something more he could do for Sasuke. Sasuke is still standing and Iruka can't guess what's going through his mind; he won't disrespect Sasuke's trauma by even trying. He picks up Sasuke's file and taps it against the edge of the desk to draw his student's attention. "If you insist on fieldwork, I want you to know that there will be two conditions."

Trembling, Sasuke nods at him, his quivering lips too noticeable for Iruka to consider the action calm and collected. He's seconds away from falling apart, and honestly, Iruka is impressed he's kept it together for as long as he has.

"The first condition is that you attend mandatory therapy sessions for a minimum of two years or until your therapist clears you to end the sessions."

Sasuke's trembling stops and Iruka watches as rage takes over his carefully blank expression. "I don't need therapy. The forms I gave you—"

"Provide an exemption for a Clan Head from following an academy instructor's additional requirements; however, genin under a jounin's instruction cannot maintain the title of Clan Head. This is because your jounin instructor functions as your primary legal guardian and their authority over you is absolute, often taking precedence over the other adult figures in your life." Iruka pauses here, taking note of the varying confusion in each of his students' eyes. "For example, Let's say Sakura was injured in the field and the hospital staff claimed there were two options to help her. Option A is guaranteed to have a complete recovery if successful but has a very high failure rate; Option B will result in her losing some function in her left hand but is guaranteed to work. If Sakura's parents decide on Option B, but Kakashi wants Option A, Sakura will undergo Option A regardless of her parents' protests.

"Jounin sensei have a lot of power over their genin, and so, to protect the integrity of the clans, genin with jounin sensei are not allowed the title of Clan Head. Until you reach chunin or are dropped from Kakashi's care and enter the Genin Corps, you will not be recognized as the Uchiha Clan Head; therefore, I have spoken to the Hokage and made therapy a mandatory requirement for you to enter the field." He pulls the form sentencing Sasuke to therapy out of the file. A form that he had filled out this morning with the Hokage to guarantee no one would have the chance to use more bureaucracy to sabotage Sasuke's mental health. The only thing the it had been missing when he left the Hokage's Tower was Kakashi's signature stating he agreed Sasuke needs therapy, which is why Iruka is confused to see Kakashi's signature on the line.

In fact, the entire portion Iruka had filled out on Kakashi's behalf has been rewritten in a deliberate pain in the ass chicken scrawl Iruka had been trying to avoid having the administration department read. That's not even Kakashi's natural handwriting. Iruka's seen the man's mission reports from when he was a child. The man writes neat enough to replace the printing press. Iruka is positive Kakashi only uses his messy handwriting to punish anyone who forces him to do paperwork.

He slides the form across the desk to Sasuke. Sasuke glares at it without making a move to touch it. "And the second condition?"

"Relocation. It's been determined that living alone on the Uchiha Clan ground is negatively affecting your mental health; therefore, it is required that you relocate and cohabit a location that has been selected for you."

"And who determined this?" Sasuke's snarling, eyes flicking around the room, plotting an escape route.

Iruka squashes his sympathy. This is for Sasuke's own good. And while Iruka would have preferred things never reached this point, they have. They have and the only thing he can do is force his student to accept help. He looks Sasuke in the eyes and refuses to back down or show any form of weakness. "I did."

Through clenched teeth, Sasuke says, "You can't do this."

"Actually, I can. Before his death, the Fourth Hokage introduced legislature that allows jounin sensei and academy teachers the right to forcefully relocate children from their residence if significantly traumatic experiences occurred at the location. The location will be sealed and inaccessible to the public until the child is recognized as an adult, which as you should know, means until they become a chunin or turn eighteen."

Iruka has no idea why the Fourth Hokage created the bill. He's not even sure if the man even got to use it because he died days after it was legislated. Still, it's something he strongly agrees with. Sasuke shouldn't be living alone on the Uchiha Compound. Not after his entire family was slaughtered there.

"And who am I supposed to be cohabiting with?"

Iruka's been a ninja long enough that his eyes don't even twitch in Naruto's direction. "I was planning to tell you after the meeting. I thought you would prefer not having your teammates aware of your living situation." He really hopes Sasuke accepts his bullshit because Iruka can only deal with one tantrum at a time.

Sasuke finally turns away from Iruka to glare at both his teammates, before turning back to Iruka and nodding.

"Do you accept these conditions?"

There's a very long pause. For a moment, Iruka worries that Sasuke will refuse. There's a change in Sasuke's stance, his spine straightening and his eyes hardening. "I will do anything to get stronger," he snaps, "so I'll accept your terms. But make no mistakes, Umino, I will never forget this."

"What an adorable little drama queen I have on my team," Kakashi chirps from between the pages of his novel because he has no interest in helping this meeting run smoothly. Naruto bursts into laughter at the words and Sakura gasps, looking both scandalized and amused, while Sasuke pulls out a kunai and whirls around to face Kakashi.

That's probably supposed to be a threat. Especially with the disrespect Sasuke tacked on with how he addressed him, but honestly, Iruka hopes Sasuke remembers this. That he remembers that there will always be people in the village willing to help him, even if he refuses to accept that help. "Alright then. Have a seat and we can begin your evaluation."

Sasuke, begrudgingly, returns his kunai to his pouch and sits down in his seat.

"Sasuke, you are disciplined, assertive, and adaptable. Your greatest assets are your confidence and your focus. You make your goal, create a strategy to get to it, and work very hard to make it a reality. Once you make a decision, it's only a matter of time until it's accomplished. You're also very good at incorporating new information into your plans and working around the limitations placed on you. If the situation calls for it, you've also shown a good amount of cunning and stealth.

"Your taijutsu is excellent, your ninjutsu is well above average, and your genjutsu is above average. Your abilities are varied enough that you are able to function close, mid, or long ranged, which makes you an excellent fit for almost any role in combat. You're also competent enough that your able to swap between these positions with ease. Both your chakra control and reserves are above average. You have the option to specialize in ninjutsu, taijutsu, or genjutsu. Because you have stated on multiple occasions that your ambition is to assassinate Uchiha Itachi, I highly recommend you refine your chakra control and become a med-nin." He holds up one hand to stall what he knows will be vehement protests. "Learn how to put the body together in order to know how to tear it apart permanently. Med-nins learn how to save people from a variety of different things, which means they also learn how to kill people in just as many ways."

Furthermore, after his experiences, Iruka suspects that Sasuke will not cope well with being helpless while his teammates are dying in front of him. Once he bonds with them, Iruka doesn't think he'll be able to sit idly while they're injured. Learning medical ninjutsu will give him a sense of control when his allies are dying around him, and while, eventually Sasuke will have to deal with the harsh reality that you can't save everyone, for now Iruka thinks it'll be enough if he saves some people.

"Your greatest weakness is your pride." Iruka ignores the way Sasuke tries to set him on fire with the heat of his glare. "Your ego is so big it prevents you from working with your comrades as you spend a good portion of your time looking down on them. More concerningly, your pride usually makes you forget that you're a ninja."

"I have not forgotten—"

Sakura smacks Sasuke over the head. "Listen to what he has to say and complain afterwards." She doesn't look over at her crush, which is probably a good thing because Sasuke looks furious. Naruto begins snickering, but Sakura glares him into silence.

"As I was saying, your pride makes you do outrageous things that makes it clear you've forgotten that you are a ninja, not a samurai. In class exercises, you're liable to refuse to finish the objective without engaging the other students in a fight. You abandon stealth and subtlety in order to participate in combat. As shinobi, you should know that if you have to fight, you've already failed. You should never refuse to finish the objective because you want to get into a pointless brawl with the enemy. If you can accomplish the goal unseen, then that's how you should aim for." This is a problem with many genin, especially the boys, but Iruka has never seen it manifest so extremely in someone.

Sasuke needs to be the best in a desperate way that worries Iruka because it causes him to do stupid things like camp out in front of the drop off location and fight his classmates during a mock mission. Hopefully, therapy puts a stop to that nonsense.

Iruka skims through the papers in Sasuke's file to confirm he hasn't left anything out. He hands one copy to Sasuke and glances quickly at Naruto who looks ready to explode from behaving for so long. "Sasuke, you have the potential to be an extraordinary shinobi, one with few equals; however, in order to become your best, you're going to have to reign in your pride. Learn to accept help from others and to ask for it when you need it. Work with others and swallow your pride, and guarantee that nothing will stop you."


	5. Naruto

"Inside your file, I've written down your new address; you are expected to finish relocating three days from now. There is also a permission slip allowing you to go to the hospital to learn from one of the medic-nins there." Iruka informs Sasuke as the boy flips through the folder in his hand. "The first lesson will be tomorrow at 06:00, if you decide to attend. Furthermore, though you have the permission slip, you are not the only one for whom I've arranged these extra lessons. Make sure you inform Shino and Shikamaru that they have the option to join you by the end of today."

It's true that Iruka could have given the slip to Shino or Shikamaru, or even told them about the lessons, but Iruka really wants to force Sasuke to reach out to them. Out of all the genin that graduated, those two, especially Shino, are the ones most likely to get along with Sasuke and form something of a friendship.

And that won't work if they go to Sasuke. It'll only work if Sasuke approaches them of his own volition.

Sasuke nods once in his direction, not even bothering to glance at him, and Iruka forces down his disappointment. He's not concerned that Sasuke will cause the other two to miss the lessons, he did make a note in their sensei's file, but he is worried that Sasuke will refuse out of spite.

Hopefully that works itself out.

"Aww, wasn't that nice of Iruka-sensei, Little Sasuke? He went and got you extra lessons, so you won't suck so much." Kakashi's voice is overly peppy and Iruka isn't the only one to glare at him.

The asshole doesn't even look up from his book.

"Do you have anything constructive to add to this meeting?" Iruka snaps, fighting down the urge to get up and punch the man in the face. No point in wasting his energy on a blow that will never connect.

"Constructive? Hmm, let me think?" Kakashi begins humming under his breath, casually turning another page in his book. "Well, I'm not exactly sure if this counts," his voice switches from singsong to deadly serious in a way that only a veteran shinobi's can, "but I think Naruto might explode soon."

He's not wrong. Naruto is almost vibrating in his seat and Iruka expects to start hearing the chair rattling against the floor.

He's not wrong. He's just not very useful.

"So, that's a no."

"If you say so." Kakashi flips the page of his filth in a clear dismissal, giggling in a way no grown man ever should, and Iruka wrestles down the part of his temper that wants to fight this man because there's no way he's winning a fight against Hatake Kakashi.

He hates jounin. Iruka really fucking hates them.

Iruka eyes Naruto, tries to plan out the best way to approach this conversation because this is Naruto, and it's Naruto more than any of his other students who Iruka wants to succeed.

He's not supposed to have favourites. No good instructor has a favourite. But the reality is that every teacher does. After spending so many hours with the kids, how could Iruka not pick out ones he likes more than others. Ones he has higher expectations of and holds them to a different, harsher, stricter standard.

Iruka knows that Ino, Shino, and Sasuke tend to be the type of students that teachers place on a pedestal: Fast learners, disciplined, driven. Iruka likes students like Hinata, Naruto, and Chouji. Kids who don't realize just how amazing they are. The ones Iruka must fight to drag out all of their potential just so he can see the look on their face when they finally manage to climb up the hill they've been struggling with.

He's always preferred his fellow underdogs.

He wants Naruto to do well, but Naruto's unpredictable at the best of times. There's no guessing how he'll react to advice. Which means Iruka needs to stop stalling and be brutally honest with Naruto.

"Naruto, four days ago, I failed you during the graduation test. I still firmly believe that another year at the academy would be in your best interest." He holds up a hand to prevent the massive explosion Naruto's preparing to unleash. "However, your actions that day demonstrated to me that I should give you a chance, which is why, like Sasuke, you also have a conditional acceptance into the field."

"Eh? But, Iruka-sensei—"

"This isn't up for debate, Naruto. If you want to be ninja, you have to fill two requirements."

Naruto pouts, slouching in his seats. "But I'm going to be an awesome ninja and—"

Sakura swats him over the head, noticeably softer than she would have before this meeting. "Stop complaining. If you want to be a ninja, all you have to do is meet the conditions."

Naruto blinks for a second and then perks up. "Yeah, yeah! You're so smart, Sakura! All I've gotta do is fill the condition than I can be the most badass ninja there ever was!" He pumps one fist in the air, bouncing in his seat. "So, do I gotta go to therapy or something?"

"No, you don't need therapy." Iruka assures him. Naruto is so well-adjusted it's worrying. It would be normal for a child in his situation to be angry and spiteful, closed-off and withdrawn, untrusting and distant, but Naruto has always been warm, friendly, and forgiving. And Iruka knows he can't exactly put him in therapy for not showing signs of being disturbed.

Ibiki-sensei had said there weren't enough therapist around for anyone not showing immediate signs of needing help. Instead, Naruto is on a waiting list and will be moved to priority the first instance his behaviour indicates he needs additional support.

"However, you are required to return to the academy in six months to rewrite the theoretical portion of your graduation exam." Six months is just far enough away that Naruto can get a lot of studying done if he's dedicated. "If you don't answer at least eighty percent of the questions correctly, your genin status will fall under scrutiny and your forehead protector may be revoked."

Naruto's confidence flees in an instant and he looks at Iruka with wide terrified eyes. "I have to write a test?" His eyes water into the saddest puppy dog eyes Iruka has ever seen.

Iruka meets them with an unmoved stare because he's had nightmares about Naruto fighting enemy shinobi, insisting he'd use all of his "'catchra' for a super awesome jutsu to scare them off".

"You have six months to study for it. All your peers wrote and passed this exam. The students who failed the exam, weren't assigned to a jounin instructor. If you join Team 7 without passing it, some people might take the chance to claim that you never earned your spot." This isn't exactly the most honest thing Iruka could say. It's a few centimetres shy of being a blatant lie. Plenty of exceptions have been made before for students who failed the written portion of the exam to allow them to join genin teams.

But Naruto doesn't need to know that. He also doesn't need to know that of the nine students who are now genin, only four of them scored eighty percent or above nor does he need to know nothing will change if he fails. Having Naruto pass the exam isn't a necessity. It's something Iruka convinced the Hokage to allow for his own peace of mind. Because Iruka wants to guarantee that Naruto has all the tools available to have a long career.

Naruto scowls. "I totally earned my headband!"

"And you have six months to prove that."

Naruto nods, a stubborn tilt to his chin. "I'm gonna make everyone who doubted me regret it. And when I'm Hokage, they're all gonna feel really stupid for looking down on me, believe it!"

"And the second condition?" Sakura prompts while Naruto stews in his seat.

At her words, the blond perks back up, squinting his eyes at Iruka suspiciously. "It's not another test, is it?"

"No. The second condition is relocation. I've decided that living alone is detrimental to your development. Therefore, you are required to move to a new home with a roommate." Because Iruka's been to Naruto's apartment. And while it's always appeared okay, clean in the way someone with very few belongings keeps their home, there's been other very concerning signs that Naruto isn't ready to live alone.

Things like cartons of expired milk. Left out on the table. Beside dirty glasses. Glasses dirtied with residual expired milk.

Naruto is twelve. He shouldn't be making mistakes like that. But since he is, there's nothing Iruka can do besides damage control. And in Naruto's case, damage control looks a lot like a babysitter.

On the upside, the babysitter counts as companionship, something that both boys desperately need.

Naruto freezes for a second. And then anger starts to settle into his feature. Anger isn't something Iruka is used to seeing on Naruto's face. The expression looks wrong on a face that usually smiles. It's not surprising. Naruto's situation in the village is tenuous at best and Iruka's sure Naruto has always considered his home a safe haven. A place just for him that no one can meddle with

And Iruka's taking that away from him.

It'll be better for them in the long run. But that doesn't make the immediate situation less scary or undesirable.

"This isn't up for debate, Naruto. If you want to be a genin, you must relocate and cohabit with a roommate. And while I'm sure the two of you will spend the beginning of your cohabitation fighting, I'm also sure that by the end of it, you'll see each other as family." He adds that part to try to soothe the frustration clinging to the edge of his eyes.

It's a mistake. The second he finishes speaking, Sakura gasps. She turns to glance at Naruto for a second before, to Iruka's despair, unsubtly turning to look at Sasuke. Unfortunately, Sasuke isn't Naruto. He doesn't stare at Sakura with a mixture of confusion and concern; instead, he puts the pieces of the puzzle together.

"I am not living with that idiot!"

Damnit.

He'd really really hoped that neither boys would reveal their new address to each other. He could have had a very vague conversation with them separately after this meeting about their new roommates and sent them on their way. That way he'd be nowhere near the explosion when they found out.

"It's either live with Naruto or don't be a ninja." Iruka retorts, resisting the urge to rub his temples. This conversation has already given him a headache.

Naruto's face scrunches up and Iruka can almost hear the gears turning into his head. When it clicks, he yelps, "What—Iruka-sensei—you—me—Iruka-sensei—that bastard!"

Iruka thinks about trying to decode that statement, but decides there are too many places he could possibly take it.

"Maa, maa. I hate to interrupt, but I think I agree with Naruto's concern." Kakashi chuckles and Iruka feels his headache evolve into a migraine. "After all, Sasuke stole Naruto's first kiss, who knows how safe Little Naruto's virtue will be when he's sleeping. You never know when Little Sasuke's little Sasuke will seek him out."

Naruto shrieks in terror and throws himself out of his chair, sprinting for the door, as Sasuke stands up, an enraged snarl on his lips and fingers flying through a jutsu. Sakura sits in her chair, face slowly turning red as she alternates between looking at Sasuke and Naruto.

Iruka doesn't want to know what she's thinking.

He fucking hates jounin. What kind of asshole deliberately derails a basic assessment? The jounin sensei are supposed to reconvene after this to book training grounds and at the rate they're going, Kakashi is going to cause the meeting to start late.

Late.

This asshole.

If Iruka hears one complaint tomorrow that he caused the meeting to run late, he'll—he doesn't know what he does, but he will find a way to make Hatake Kakashi regret fucking with him.

Kakashi, far too pleased with the chaos he's caused, returns to his book, while Sakura grabs Sasuke's arm to prevent him from setting the chair on fire (again) and Naruto fights with the locked door.

"Naruto, sit back down. Your… virtue is not in danger." Those are words Iruka should never have to say to a twelve-year-old.

"But—"

"Kakashi just thinks he's funny." Honestly, half the shit that's come out of Kakashi's mouth was said solely to get a rise out of his genin.

"I'm hilarious."

Iruka glares at Kakashi with all the disgust and rage that comment deserves while the man turns another page. Team 7 has a mutiny scheduled for somewhere in the near future.

"I only want to say this once: Living together is non-negotiable. It will greatly benefit you both. If you're not willing to share a home, please hand in your forehead protector now and exit the room."

In the silence that follow his words, Sakura asks, "So, where will they be living?"

"A four-bedroom apartment near the Jounin Standby Station has been selected for them."

"Four bedrooms by the Jounin—That's way too expensive! We'll blow our entire paycheques on rent and still not cover it." Sasuke snaps.

He's not wrong. This apartment is so far out of two genins' price range it's laughable to even consider it for a second. But the situation is unique for one reason.

"What's rent?" Naruto asks, tilting his head to the side.

That's not the question you want to hear from a boy who's been living alone since he was six. Not that the question surprises Iruka. He's investigated Naruto's finances and the situation is very complicated. For example, someone—and no amount of digging on Iruka's part has ever narrowed down who—has been paying Naruto's rent since the boy began living alone.

This has allowed Naruto to live in the nicer part of Konoha and allowed him to live above his means. Further digging—something he was only able to do because of his status as a trusted administrative assistant—revealed that his orphan stipend has been supplemented by Hatake Kakashi who's donated anywhere from ten to thirty percent of his pay to Naruto, though how much of that money goes to Naruto's orphan stipend and how much goes to a bank account that Iruka's positive Naruto doesn't know about seems to vary every time. When Iruka had investigated even further back, he'd noticed that for some inexplicable reason both Uchiha Mikoto and Hyuuga Himawari had contributed to the bank account and Naruto's orphan stipend while they'd been alive. They'd also been paying for Naruto's utilities before their deaths at which point Kakashi took over them.

That doesn't even account for the quality of equipment Naruto uses. Naruto claims that sometimes he just finds new things in his apartment. Kunai, shuriken, even explosive tags. If it's useful for the shinobi life, Naruto has a high quality one lying around somewhere and he has no idea where it came from.

Technically, Naruto has a lot of money. The reason he struggles to buy things isn't because he can't afford them, but because shops have the right to refuse to sell to someone. And there is a long list of shops that refuse to sell to Naruto, usually citing a prank he pulled on someone as their reason. It's not illegal to refuse to sell to someone, so there's nothing that can be done about the issue. Unfortunately, Naruto doesn't have enough supporters, yet, to make a boycott effective. Because of this, it looks like other people, and Iruka has no idea who they all are, have taken matters into their own hands to provide Naruto with the things he needs. From clothes to tools to groceries.

The situation is messy and complicated and Iruka doesn't even know how to begin addressing it.

"Rent is money that is paid weekly to the owner of the building you live in; however, Naruto, your rent and utilities, are being covered by a benefactor until you either become a chunin or turn eighteen. Because of this, neither of you will have to worry about rent or utilities for a while." Iruka looks both boys over, neither looking like they'll tolerate this arrangement. But Iruka isn't giving them a choice. Not with their well-being on the line. "Do we have an agreement or will you both be resigning now."

Both of them clench their fists, glaring at his desk, but Iruka waits patiently for them to accept their fate. He's not budging on this issue. He knows from personal experience that children should not live alone.

Unsurprisingly, it's Naruto who breaks the silence. "I'm going to be a ninja," he declares. "I'm going to be the best ninja and then I'll be the best Hokage ever. Nothing's gonna stop me, not even living with a grumpy bastard like him, believe it."

"What the idiot said," Sasuke grunts, relaxing in his seat, "but without the stupid."

"Okay, then." Iruka nods, feeling some of his tension fade. "There's just one last thing we need to discuss before I go into your evaluation, Naruto."

Naruto squints at him, cheeks puffing up. "You said there were only two conditions!"

"I did."

"And there are no more tests!"

Sakura smacks him, "What's the last thing you want to discuss, Iruka-sensei?"

"Just like I talked about Sakura's crush, it's time we talked about yours, Naruto." This is going to be another long painful conversation that Iruka doesn't particularly want to get involved in.

"My what?" Naruto sounds genuinely baffled at those words. It's genuine enough that Iruka almost starts second guessing himself.

"Your crush on Sakura."

Naruto blinks confused, looking over at Sakura who's blushing red and staring at her lap. "I don't want to crush Sakura."

Sakura slowly turns to Naruto, her expression a mixture of hurt and confusion. "What do you mean you don't have a crush on me. You're always asking me on dates!"

"Well, yeah. Of course, I do. If we go on a date, you'll be my girl friend."

"So, you do have a crush on me!"

"I don't want to crush you!"

"You said that I'm the prettiest girl in the academy!"

"So? What does you being pretty have to do with anything?"

Iruka watches the back and forth, feeling his sanity slowly slipping away. What the fuck is going on right now?

"You're being ridiculous. If you want me to be your girlfriend, you have a crush on me. I have a crush on Sasuke, which is why I want him to be my boyfriend."

"So? Sasuke's going to end up my boy friend and I don't want to crush him—well, I do. But, that's only because he's a bastard!"

There's a brief silence where every eye is on Naruto who stares at Sakura stubbornly.

What the fuck?

"Ah," Kakashi snickers, looking up from his book, "I guess I was wrong to worry about Naruto's virtue. Clearly, it's Sasuke's chastity that's in danger. I should have known after the naughty way Naruto tied Sasuke up."

What the fuck. Why is this—They're twelve. Who jokes about twelve-year-olds like that?

Sasuke glares at Naruto, fingers flying through a jutsu, while Kakashi, content with the chaos he's sown, goes back to his book. "I knew you kissed me—"

"Sasuke," Iruka interrupts because unlike Kakashi who Iruka couldn't care less about, Naruto isn't likely to dodge a fire jutsu from this close, "don't set your teammate on fire."

He really shouldn't have to say that to anyone.

While Sasuke continues to glare at Naruto, the force of which has thankfully cowed Naruto into silence, and Sakura continues to alternate glances at her teammates while blushing, Iruka tries to make sense of his thoughts. Someone is miscommunicating here.

"Naruto, when you say you want Sakura to be your girlfriend, do you mean you want her to be your friend who's a girl?"

"Obviously, Iruka-sensei." Naruto grumbles. "I don't want to crush her or anything weird like that."

"And when you say Sasuke will be your boyfriend…"

"I mean he's going to be my friend who's a boy. But I'll totally crush him if he doesn't stop being a jerk!"

"Okay. I understand that." Sasuke and Sakura both look relieved, settling into their seats. "If you want to be friends with Sakura, why do you keep asking her on dates?"

"What do you mean, Iruka-sensei? Everyone knows that when you play with your girl friends, it's called a date, and when you play with you boy friends, it's hanging out."

That wasn't even remotely true, but Naruto doesn't have any parents to correct him. Sakura is staring at Naruto in shock, like she's seeing him for the first time. "So, you mean all those times you asked me on a date, you just wanted to play?"

Naruto shrugs, staring at the counter. He's slouching, arms crossed, and for a second, he looks smaller than he really is, almost drowning in his orange jacket. "Well, yeah. Some of the other girls were being mean to you and wouldn't let you play with them, so I thought you might want to play with me instead."

"I didn't know that," Sakura says gently and there's a softness in her eyes that wasn't there before. "If I'd known, I might've said yes."

"How could you not know?" Naruto asks, voice sharp and intense. The seriousness almost makes him unrecognizable. "I asked you to go on a date with me. Just like all of you girls kept asking the bastard to go on a date with you."

"We weren't going to play. I didn't want to be his friend!" Sakura snaps. And then she pauses, eyes wide, and turns to glance at Sasuke. "I didn't want to be his friend," she repeats herself softly, eyes dropping down to her lap. After a moment, she shakes her head and turns back to Naruto. "Honestly, Naruto, didn't your parents ever teach—" She stops again. Her eyes flick over to Sasuke, dimming just a bit. After a moment, she straightens her spine and turns back to Naruto. "Dating is what people do when they're getting to know someone they think they want to marry. A girlfriend or a boyfriend is what you would call the person you're dating. So, when you asked me to go on a date, I thought you meant that you wanted to get to know me privately so we can see if we want to get married one day. And when you said Sasuke will be you boyfriend, we thought you meant you might want to marry him one day."

Iruka doesn't even try to fight to keep his face straight at the look of horror that overtakes Naruto's face at those words. "Eh! I wouldn't marry that bastard if he were the last person on the planet!" There's something mildly hilarious about the way Naruto's vehement protests cause Sasuke to finish relaxing in his seat.

"Like I'd ever marry a moron like you!" Sasuke retorts, his expression is probably the closest to happy it's been in years.

Iruka can attest to the fact that there's nothing more relieving in the world than knowing your crazy teammate doesn't want to marry you.

"Well," Iruka chuckles, "now that we've gotten that out of the way, shall we begin your evaluation, Naruto?"

At his words, Naruto grins at him, pumping a fist in the air. "Yeah, Iruka-sensei! Tell me everything I need to know to be the best ninja ever!"

"Naruto, you are spontaneous, creative, and inspirational. Your greatest asset is your willpower. It provides you with a never-ending amount of staying power and the drive to surpass any obstacle. Furthermore, your refusal to give up forces the others around you to do their best and that can be seen in this year's graduation exam."

"What do you mean by that, Iruka-sensei?" Sakura asks.

"Don't you think it's strange that while twenty-seven out of thirty students successfully passed their exam, only nine of you became genin?"

The genin share a look between them, eyebrows furrowed in thought. "I mean, it was a little weird," Sakura says, "but Kakashi-sensei said that the survival exercise to become a genin has a sixty-six percent failure rating, so I figured…"

"Beginning from the first day at the academy until the day a jounin sensei administers a team evaluation, there is only a thirty percent chance that a student will become a genin. The majority of students drop out of the academy and the rest take two or three additional remedial years before joining the Genin Corps."

"Thirty percent? That means most of our class should have left ages ago. Why would you even do that?" Sakura splutters.

"Here in Konoha, we value quality over quantity, especially since we're in the middle of peace time and have no need to churn out as many genin as possible. The less students in your class, the more individual and specialized attention we can give our students. We're not interested in subpar genin, we only want the best of the best. And we make sure to periodically thin your numbers with pass/fail exercises like the Leap of Faith; however, those exercises become useless with students like Naruto around."

The Leap of Faith exercise is one of the simpler culling activities. The students are told to make an impossible jump from one cliff to another. Those who make the jump pass and those who don't make it fail. To make it harder, the students are given no supplies and the drop is fatal if you fail. To be "fair", students are told that they don't have to try if they don't want to. They can try again at a later date with no consequences. In reality, those who don't jump are dropped from the academy immediately. What the students don't know is that they are under a genjutsu and the cliff isn't real.

"I didn't do anything!" Naruto protests. "I just jumped!"

"No," Iruka disagrees, "you gave yourself a very loud pep talk and then you jumped. A little more than half of your peers were going to hold off on jumping, which would have resulted in them being dropped from the academy. Instead, after hearing your words, every single student who was about to fail, gathered their courage and charged after you." It had been shocking. It had been unbelievable. It had been awe-inspiring. "Believe it or not, Naruto, but when you speak, people tend to listen. Whether they want to be or not, people are drawn to you and inspired to do their best." Naruto's mouth has dropped slightly and Iruka resists the urge to chuckle at his shock. "It's a bit of a double-edged sword, though. The last thing you'd want to do is accidentally give your enemies a pep talk. For example, if you were taking the chunin exams, you wouldn't want the others from enemy nations suddenly putting their all into it, now would you?"

A startled Sakura stares at Naruto with red cheeks. Not surprising. Sakura had been amongst the students who would have dropped out if not for Naruto's outburst. Completely oblivious to Sakura's staring, Naruto purses his lips and Iruka can hear the thoughts going on in his head.

"Naruto, don't give foreign shinobi pep talks," Iruka says, stopping that line of thought before it can get truly started. "Moving on, your taijutsu is below average, your ninjutsu is average, and your genjutsu is well above average."

"I knew it!" Sakura shouts, pointing at Naruto. "I knew it! I knew it! I knew it!"

"Knew what? Wait, what? My genjutsu is—what is going on?" Naruto shouts back.

"How the hell is his genjutsu above average when the moron can't even manage a simple clone?"

Iruka clears his throat and all three genin instinctively fall quiet. "When you create a clone at the beginner level, the clone mimics you. It should be in the same position that you are in. One of the ways I can identify if a student has a natural talent for genjutsu is based off the positioning of their clone. If it's different than how the student is positioned, than the student is usually talented. Furthermore, the Clone Jutsu is finicky enough that if you don't do it exactly right, the jutsu should just fail, not produce abysmal copies collapsed on the ground."

"Couldn't it have just been luck?" Sasuke asks, sparing Naruto an unimpressed glance.

"I thought it might have been at first, but not too long ago, Naruto demonstrated his Sexy Jutsu that he's so proud of."

"That stupid transformation?" Sakura asks, glaring at Naruto who wisely refuses to look at her.

"It's not stupid," he grumbles under his breath.

"It's not just a transformation," Iruka sighs. "I assure you, as a chunin, I've seen enough naked women that having Naruto suddenly transform into one in the middle of class isn't going to get a reaction from me. When Naruto transforms, he also places his target under a genjutsu."

"I do?"

"You do. It's a very brute force method of using genjutsu, which makes it very obvious what's happening and easy to dispel. If one is expecting it, it wouldn't be hard to guard against, but if you're not expecting it, it will overwhelm you for a moment."

"How did I put a genjutsu in there?" Naruto asks, scratching the back of his head.

Iruka shakes his head in amusement. "I have no idea how you crafted that jutsu, Naruto. All I know is that it shows you have a natural ability for genjutsu." Genjutsu is a complicated skill and the thought that Naruto is skilled in it is a little terrifying when Iruka thinks about the pranks Naruto's pulled without knowing how to apply it. "Anyways, your chakra reserves are well above average and your chakra control is well below average. With your stats spread out the way they are, it's hard to recommend that you specialize anywhere right now."

"But you said I have a talent for genjutsu!"

"The vast majority of genjutsu requires very precise chakra control, which you don't have. And a ninjutsu specialty also requires finer control than you currently possess. Your best bet right now is to work on refining your chakra control for a genjutsu specialty while also improving your taijutsu to an acceptable level. More importantly, I highly recommend that you begin learning fuinjutsu."

"What's that?" Naruto shouldn't be asking that as a graduate of the academy. Every time he asks about basic knowledge, Iruka worries more about sending him out into the field and becomes more adamant that forcing him to return in six months to write the theoretical portion of the graduation exam is the right move.

"Fuinjutsu is the art of sealing. It's how things like storage scrolls and explosive tags are created. By learning fuinjutsu, you'll gain the ability to begin crafting your own supplies and modifying them for your own needs. For example, you can change how long the charge on an explosive tag is to suit your needs or change how hot it burns. Being able to craft your own tools will greatly help you exploit your own creativity and help you in the long run."

"That's so cool, Iruka-sensei!"

"It's very cool," he agrees.

A Naruto proficient in both fuinjutsu and genjutsu on top of his normal pranking shenanigans and the Shadow Clone Jutsu he recently learned is a horrific thought. It gives Naruto too many options to go about terrorizing others, but that's precisely why Iruka knows he needs to learn them. If you include the basic ninjutsu he's guaranteed to learn from Kakashi, Naruto will have the skillset of a chunin, even though he'll lack the mindset of one.

"Moving on," Iruka flips opens Naruto's folder and skims it to verify what he's about to say. "Your greatest weakness is your pride." He holds up one hand to stop the argument he knows Naruto's preparing. "When you decide you need to learn something, you learn it. I have seen you sit quietly for hours on end, refusing to budge or look up from a scroll, because you were determined to figure something out. I have seen you practise a skill again and again and again and again until you hit the point where you will never get it wrong. I have seen you put so much efforts into your training that you make even the most disciplined of your classmates, like Sasuke, look lazy."

He sees a grin on Naruto's lips and glares at him until it vanishes.

"The problem is that you only put that effort in when you deem it important. The second you decide it's not important, you write it off and ignore it. You've disregarded chakra theory, chakra control, history, geography, politics, mathematics and the list goes on. You're not an expert, Naruto. You don't know get to decide what is important to know and what's not. Everything that's taught at the academy is taught because it's important for genin to know. The geography lessons you skipped taught you about the environments in foreign countries and how to prepare for missions there. The history and politic lessons explained the relationship between countries, including countries it's safe to be seen in and the ones no one can ever know you went to. The high-level mathematic classes would have helped you cut down on most of the trial and error preparations for your pranks by giving you a solid estimate on how tense tripwires and the amount of force needed to launch a paint balloon at Momoski's Shop.

"In the end, your knowledge base is shoddy and unreliable and there's no one really to blame but you. I know you, Naruto, I know that it doesn't matter what obstacles are in your way or who you have to overcome when you want to learn something. But that wasn't your problem. Your problem was that you didn't want to learn because you decided it wasn't important. Well, unfortunately for you, it was important and your going to have six months to study and figure out why. You need to learn to listen to those more experienced around you when they offer advice. Not all advice is good or useful, but it should all be heard, nonetheless."

The teachers weren't the problem this time. It's true that most of them refused to help Naruto in any capacity, but it's also true that Naruto never approached any of them for help. If Naruto had wanted to learn the coursework, Iruka firmly believes he would have learned it. But, Naruto hadn't wanted to learn, so now the genin has to play catch up to get where he's supposed to be.

Naruto's file comes with three books, one for the basics of fuinjutsu, another on the basics of genjutsu, and the last on beginner-level chakra control exercises, alongside a revision schedule and study guide for the theoretical portion of his exam.

Iruka can't even pretend it's not a blatant case of favouritism.

"Along with your file are books on chakra control, genjutsu, and fuinjutsu, as well as a study guide to help you prepare for the test in six months. Read them, study hard, and you'll be an excellent shinobi before you know it."

Naruto's staring at the study guide in his hand with an oddly solemn expression. "Do I really got to learn this stuff, Iruka-sensei? Is it really that important?"

Iruka pauses, thinks about the different ways he could phrase this: The nice ways, the cruel ways, the blunt ways, the subtle ways. "It's only important if you want to be the best possible shinobi you can be. To reach your full potential, you can't have anything holding you back, no matter how small."

Naruto nods. "Alright, then it's decided. I'm going to learn all this stuff and then I'm going to write the test and get the best grade and then I'll be the greatest ninja there ever was!" He pumps one fist in the air, waving his crumpled study guide.

"I look forward to that," Iruka says, flipping open a file on the team formation. "The last thing to discuss is how I designed this team to function. One of the things that went into consideration when I made this team was each of your individual goals."

"What do you mean you by that?" Sasuke asks, crossing his arms.

"Every year, you took a psychological evaluation, right?" He waits until the genin nod before continuing. "During that exam, we ask what you want to accomplish as a shinobi of Konoha. Your answer does affect the team you end up on." It's not a big effect, but it is something that is considered. "Naruto, you want to be Hokage; Sasuke, you want to kill Uchiha Itachi; and Sakura, you want to remind the world of Konoha's strength."

Sakura's goal was textbook and impersonal, but that's to be expected. At this age, most shinobi don't have a reason to be shinobi beyond it being an expectation from family or to escape civilian life. Eventually, Sakura will find a reason to fight for Konoha, a reason to be strong, but that will take a few years. Sometimes you have to risk your life a few times, before you know what you're willing to risk your life for.

"Because of that, this team is designed to be a combat team, able to defeat any target assigned to it. There are multiple ways you can go about this. Naruto has a very strong grounding in traps, which can be supplemented by Sakura's theoretical knowledge and Sasuke's practicality for times when you are able to prepare beforehand. In battles of attrition, Naruto's stamina means he will be able to fight for much longer than the rest of you, which will give Sasuke time to rest while he carefully chips away at the enemy's defences until Sakura finishes analyzing them for weaknesses and is able to neutralize them with a single strike."

It's terrifying how competent this team is on paper. Especially when they're completely dysfunctional in reality.

"You have Sakura's methodology and knowledge, Naruto's creativity and stamina, and Sasuke's skills and strength, which means you have a method, a madness, and a means. There is no reason why anything should stop you from accomplishing your goals. The three of you weren't just slapped together randomly."

They were. After Kakashi had derailed the team placements, Iruka had been fiddling around with the teams and put the three of them together knowing they'd be okay theoretically, but not realistically, just to prove that the teams couldn't be arranged how the council wanted them.

And then some asshole pointed out Sakura is a civilian and this disaster became permanent.

"The three of you were put together because you'd make a strong team capable of hunting down any bounty. Between the three of you, you have access to all the main shinobi arts, which gives you an edge in most combat situations." He hands each of the genin a file on the breakdown of their team, hoping that they take his advice and don't just kill each other the second they walk out of this room. "If you work together, you'll be unstoppable. If you fight amongst each other, you'll fail."

The three of them trade glances, sceptical black, hopeful blue, and analytical green. Iruka waits for them to finish because there's nothing more he can possibly do for them.

"That's all I have for you. If you return to the classroom, I'll be posting the unofficial class rankings after Sakura and Ino finish their discussion." He rises from his seat and notices that Kakashi is definitely smirking at him from over the top of his book.

He has no idea why. He can't think of anything he's done to get a reaction out of the man, but there must be something.

Fucking jounin.

"I wish the three of you the best of luck. Do your best and I hope to see all three of you among the chunin soon."

He exits the room with Naruto and Sasuke, while Kakashi vanishes because he's an asshole without any manners. When they step inside the classroom, Ino glares at him until he tilts his head towards the door. She's on her feet and out the door before Shikamaru can finish straightening his slouching spine. "One moment, please. We're just waiting on Sakura and Ino and then I'll be wrapping up this evaluation and posting your unofficial rankings."

To his immense relief, Sasuke storms over to Shino and then stalks over to Shikamaru, before heading to his own corner to ignore the rest of the world. Naruto hesitates for a second before squaring his shoulders and dropping into the seat beside Sasuke. The two don't say a word to each other, but the simple act of sitting side-by-side is an improvement in their relationship.

It's not much, but it's a step in the right direction.

He turns to the blackboard and writes the numbers one to twenty-seven in two neat columns of fifteen. He fills in the names of the students beside their ranks, a convenient genjutsu preventing the genin in the room from seeing any name beside their own and their teammates. Sakura and Ino walk into the room five minutes later.

That's not as long as Iruka had thought it would take. He's not sure how much talking they could have done in five minutes, but both of their eyes are red and both of them are smiling. Ino drags Sakura into a quick one-armed hug that Sakura melts into before the two of them separate, heading towards their teams.

Sakura willingly sits in the open seat beside Naruto. She doesn't even try to make him switch seats so she can sit next to Sasuke.

That is the real progress of the day.

"What the hell kinda witchcraft did you do, Iruka-sensei?" Kiba yelps, eyes darting between Ino and Sakura.

"Mind your own business, Kiba!" Ino snaps. "Hinata," she continues, voice switching to something softer and kinder, "Sakura and I need to talk to you after, okay?"

"A-ah! Okay." Hinata looks like she has more to say, but her eyes drop to the table.

"Now, that we're all here," Iruka says, standing in front of his students for the last time, "allow me to say a few final words." He sweeps his gaze across the students, wondering how they'll turn out. These are the first ones he's sending out into the force and it's hard for him to think logically when he's being overcome by sentiments. "Three genin can take down a special jounin. Three chunin can defeat a jounin. Three jounin can kill a kage. It is only here in Konoha that you will here this creed. I firmly believe in this creed. I firmly believe that any three of you, working together, have the chance to take down a jounin. We do not preach the benefits and necessity of teamwork for our amusement; we teach it because it will help you survive. Konoha is the only village that has teamwork written into its foundation and history.

"Throughout your career, you will come across many gruelling trials. You will struggle with death, betrayal, pain, and more. You will experience loss and failure and regret. However, you will never experience these things alone. You will always have your comrades and teammates to ease the burden and help you move on. And they will always have you. So long as you work together, no opponent will be too strong; no mission impossible; no challenge insurmountable. The Seven Swordsman of the Mist, the Chunin Exams, missing nins, all of these will barely amount to more than an irritation were you to work together.

"Our time together is finally at an end. The nine of you are no longer my students, but I'm going to leave you with one final question. Consider it the last homework assignment I'll ever give you. If three genin can defeat a special jounin, what do you think nine genin can do?"

It takes a second for some of them to understand his hint, but he sees the way they begin trading glances with one another. Not just with their teammates, but with the rest of their comrades.

He ends the genjutsu on them, letting them view the names and ranking of their classmates. There's nothing left to say, so Iruka exits the classroom before he bursts into tears. That is not how he wants his first interaction with his newly graduated students to go.

It's not until he gets home that he realizes something went wrong. He has Kakashi's files on Team 7. He doesn't just have Kakashi's files. He has Kakashi's files with a note attached, written in his own handwriting—even though he never wrote it—reminding him to give the file to Kakashi. And to make matters worse, the handwriting Kakashi went out of his way to forge is made inconsequential because the jounin switched back to his intentionally atrocious handwriting to sign the note, Kakashi.

In other words, Kakashi stole the files, forged a note—but didn't commit to the forgery—for it, and gave it back to Iruka. So that Iruka will be forced to hunt him down to give them to him. He'd keep them out of spite, but that sounds like an excuse for the jounin to break into his apartment.

Iruka really hates jounin.

Unfortunately for Kakashi, Iruka knows exactly where Kakashi will be tomorrow morning. All nine genin will be reporting to the Hokage alongside their jounin-sensei to get their first mission assignment. It's a tradition. One that guarantees Iruka doesn't have to waste his time looking for a jounin who will entertain himself by making Iruka's life difficult. All he has to do is report to the mission's desk first thing in the morning and shove the files into Kakashi's face.

**DtCW**

There's a small snag in the plan. Iruka does get to the mission desk first thing in the morning. He had the files in his hand, so he couldn't forget to hand them over, but things go downhill when Kakashi doesn't show up on time. All nine genin begin getting fidgety because they can't get their first missions until everyone is there and that includes Kakashi. In the end, Iruka begins helping around the mission desk because who knows how long it'll take for the jounin to show up. Naruto complained that he'd been over three hours late to meet them on Team Assignment Day and Iruka doesn't have it in him to stand around idly for three hours.

When he does finally show up, the following debacle that occurs has Iruka so distracted that he forgets why he's there. Either that or Kakashi did something to him again. There's honestly no way for Iruka to know.

But Umino Iruka is nothing if not persistent. He was the one who assigned Team 7 their mission to paint Mrs. Makema's fence, which means he knows where they are at this exact moment. And since, technically, he isn't on duty, Iruka abandons the mission desk to those working today and takes off after them. When he finally arrives, Sakura, Sasuke, and Naruto are arguing about something while Kakashi reads his smut off to the side, while Mrs. Makema watches disapprovingly from her porch.

He throws the file at the jounin, smothering his disappointment when the man catches it without looking up. "Ah, I get one as well?" Kakashi asks innocently, turning another page of his book. "I was so jealous that Kurenai and Asuma got one and I didn't. I was starting to think you didn't like me."

That would not be incorrect.

Iruka bites his tongue because he refuses to take the bait and give Kakashi something else to tease him about. He will get his revenge. Maybe not today. Maybe not in the next two decades. But, eventually, eventually he will get that sweet taste of revenge.

Naruto yelps and Sakura shrieks and Sasuke is worriedly quiet, despite the loud splash Iruka hears behind him. Mrs. Makema is sputtering in rage and Iruka catches sight of the briefest glimpse of amusement in Kakashi's eye before he turns around.

There's white paint everywhere.

On the fence, on the ground, on the flowers behind the fence. It's in Sakura's hair, drenching Sasuke's feet and hands, coating Naruto's jacket. All three of them have a hand on the bucket of paint somewhere, so he's not even sure which of them is to blame for this mess. Iruka has no idea how they managed this in the five seconds he had his back turned to them.

He glances back at Kakashi and realizes the jounin watched that whole scene play out without bothering to intervene. Which means Iruka going to get away scot-free with his plans for revenge.

He steps forward, crossing the distance between him and Mrs. Makema quickly. "Hello, Mrs. Makema. I'm Umino Iruka, I work at the mission assignment desk. I'd like to apologize for the mess our new genin have made. They're new and untrained and this is their first mission. Hatake Kakashi is their jounin sensei and he will take full responsibility for the mess they have made, and as such, shall pay full reparations for the damage done to your garden and the surrounding area. Please allow me to escort you to the Hokage's Tower where I will help you fill out the appropriate forms for reparations. As is standard in situations like this, Kakashi will cover the price for new seeds for your garden and paint for the fence and, after we've reimbursed you for the mission fee, the genin will fix the damages they've caused. Will that be acceptable?"

Naturally, the reimbursement for the mission fee will also come out of Kakashi's pocket. This does mean, unfortunately, that Team 7 has failed their very first mission, but there's nothing Iruka can do to remedy that. There is no undoing this mess.

"Can they even be trusted to fix it after failing such a simple task?" Mrs. Makema demands.

No.

Iruka smiles politely. "Of course. Kakashi is a very competent jounin and I assure you, he will keep a closer eye on his genin to prevent another situation like this."

"Very well, then," she sniffs.

Iruka hears the loud snap of a book shutting close. He turns to glance at Kakashi who is giving his genin a less than pleased smile. They gulp, taking nervous steps away from him when Kakashi casually strolls over to them. "Maa, maa, my adorable little ducklings. I think we need to have a talk."

He's smiling, but he's not happy.

As Iruka cheerfully abandons the genin to their fate, he comforts himself with the knowledge that justice does exist. No one on this earth deserves to have those three as genin more than Kakashi.


End file.
